Louis Appia
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Louis Paul Amédée Appia (13 October 1818 – 1 May 1898) was a Swiss surgeon with special merit in the area of military medicine. In 1863 he became a member of the Geneva "Committee of Five", which was the precursor to the International Committee of the Red Cross. Six years later he met Clara Barton, an encounter which had significant influence on Clara Barton's subsequent endeavours to found a Red Cross society in the United States and her campaign for an accession of the US to the Geneva Convention of 1864.
Education and career as a field surgeon
Appie was born in Frankfurt and baptised Louis Paul Amadeus Appia.
In 1848, he assisted the wounded in
In 1859 his brother George, who was a pastor in
At the beginning of August, he returned to Geneva. Here he completed his treatise with the assistance of his friend Dr. Théodore Maunoir and published it as a book with the title "The Ambulance Surgeon; or, Practical Observations on Gunshot Wounds" (Der Feldchirurg oder einige praktische Studien über Schußverletzungen). He was also awarded the "Medal of the Saints Maurice and Lazarus", the second-highest decoration of the Kingdom of Italy, for his medical work during the Austro-Sardinian War. In November 1860, he gained the Geneva citizenship right and became a member of the Geneva Medical Society a year later.
Activity with the ICRC
In 1863, Appia was requested to join the "Committee of Five" in order to examine the ideas of
In 1867, Appia took over the position of Secretary when Henry Dunant dropped out of the International Committee. Because of the broad role of President
During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), Appia was again active as a deployed delegate. Also, in October 1872, he gave on the site assistance in Egypt to help in the creation of the first non-European Red Cross society. He also supported Clara Barton's idea to expand the mission of the Red Cross societies to deal with the victim of natural disasters and epidemics. In the following years, he continued his studies on battle injuries and remained an active member of the ICRC until his death.
References
- ^ Germany, Select Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898
- ISBN 9780226680101.
- Originally translated from the German Wikipedia
- Pierre Boissier: History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima. Henry Dunant Institute, Geneva 1985, ISBN 2-88044-012-2
- Caroline Moorehead: Dunant's dream: War, Switzerland and the history of the Red Cross. HarperCollins, London 1998, ISBN 0-00-638883-3(Paperback Edition)
- Roger Boppe: L'homme et la guerre. Le Docteur Louis Appia et les débuts de la Croix-Rouge. Muhlethaler, Geneva 1959