The Origin of the Red Cross: "Un souvenir de Solferino"Dunant, Henry
History
The Origin of the Red Cross: "Un souvenir de Solferino"
Dunant, Henry
Red Cross and Red Crescent; Solferino, Battle of, Solferino, Italy, 1859
Every family possessing a carriage, goes to the station to transport
the wounded. The number of equipages sent by the people of Milan
probably exceeds five hundred. The finest carriages as well as the
most modest carts are sent every evening to Porto Tosca, where stands
the railroad station for Venice. The Italian ladies consider it an
honor to themselves to place in their rich carriages, which they have
provided with mattresses, sheets and pillows, the guests assigned to
them and who are accompanied by the greatest noblemen of Lombardy,
aided in this work by their not less considerate servants.
The people applaud the passage of these men, famed because of their
suffering. They respectfully uncover their heads. They follow the
slow march of the convoy with torches illuminating the sad faces of
the wounded, who try to smile. They accompany them to the door of the
hospitable palace, where awaits them the most devoted care.
Every family wishes to receive the French wounded and, by all sorts of
kindness, try to lessen the sadness caused by distance from home, from
parents and from friends.
But after a few days the greater number of the inhabitants of Milan
are obliged to remove to the hospitals the wounded whom they have
received in their houses. The administration desires to avoid too
great scattering of the nursing and any increase of fatigue for the
physicians. Before Solferino, the hospitals of this city contained
about nine thousand wounded from preceding battles.
Great Milanese ladies watch beside the bed of the simple soldier, of
whom they become the guardian angels. Countess Verri, née Borroméo,
Madame Uboldi de Capei, Madame Boselli, Madame Sala-Taverna, Countess
Taverna and many others, forgetting their luxurious habits, pass whole
months by these beds of suffering. Some of these ladies are mothers,
whose mourning garments testify to a recent and sorrowful loss. One of
them said: "The war robbed me of my oldest son; he died eight months
ago, from a shot received while fighting with the French Army at
Sebastopol. When I knew that the French wounded were coming to Milan
and that I could nurse them, I felt that God was sending me His first
consolation."
Countess Verri-Borroméo, president of the Central Aid Committee, has
charge of the great depot for linens and lint. In spite of her advanced
age she devotes many hours a day to reading to the sick.
All the palaces contain wounded. That of the Borroméo family has
received three hundred. The Superior of the Ursulines, Sister Marina
Videmari, has converted her convent into a hospital and serves in it
with her companions. This convent-hospital is a model of order and
cleanliness.
The Marchioness Pallavicini-Trivulzio, who presides over the great
Turin Committee with admirable devotion and self-forgetfulness,
collects the donations from different cities and countries; thanks to
her activity the depot in Milan, situated contrada San Paolo, remains
always well provided.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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