MILITARIA 2nd EMPIRE - RED CROSS PRECURSE / CONVENTION de GE - Lot 610

MILITARIA 2nd EMPIRE - RED CROSS PRECURSE / CONVENTION de GENEVE sur les Lois et usages de la guerre ( * ) VERY RARE trilingual BOOKLET French / Italian / German 205 pages100 x 150 mm, first original edition 1866, by "Stabilimento Tipografico di Francesco Lao" PALERMO. IL PICCOLO DIZIONARIO per L'INFIRMIERE VOLONTARIO dei FERIRI in GUERRA / LE PETIT DICTIONNAIRE pour L'INFIRMIER VOLONTAIRE des BLESSES en GUERRE / DAS KLEINE WÔRTERBUCH fur den FREIWILLIGEN VERPFLEGER der VERMUNDETEN im KRIEGE. ( * ) the first of the battles fought in the second half of the 19th century was that of SOLFERINO during Napoleon III's Italian campaign. Everyone, including Henri DUNANT, who on that occasion had the idea of founding the International Red Cross, was appalled by the impressive number of corpses spread over 15 km (12,000) and the appalling number of 20,000 wounded from the 3 nations, Italian/Austrian/French. On site, a volunteer corps of nurses and surgeons was organized to assist and relieve the wounded soldiers. The biggest difficulty at Solferino was getting the wounded and dying to understand one another, as the different nations were all mixed up together. A humanist by the name of Louis Tomelli, senator of the Kingdom of Italy, staff officer and later president of the Société de Secours aux blessés militaires, came up with the idea of creating a small, portable conversation dictionary, which he supplied to field nurses and field hospitals. A dictionary of words and phrases in 3 languages for medical instruments and medicines, but also for everyday conversation, to find out if the wounded man was thirsty, what pain he was in, if he wanted to write a letter to his loved ones before he died, etc... 600 questions of everyday life and circumstance.... A VERY RARE WORK, copies of which have all but disappeared, printed on May 15, 1866, with only one thousand six hundred copies available.