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extra demands of the Medical Bureau or Commissariat, without embarrassment to the usual machinery. This, too, might, if a convention were deemed impossible, be effected by sending about an agent of special adaptation. Thus the organizing, methodizing, and reducing to serviceableness the vague, disproportioned, and haphazard benevolence of the public, might be successfully accomplished.

Third: To look after the pecuniary ways and means necessary for accomplishing the various objects of the Commission, through solicitation of donations, either from State treasuries or private beneficence. The treasurer might be at the head of this Special Committee.

OFFICERS.

If these general suggestions be adopted, the officers of the Commission might properly be a President, Vice-President, Secretary, and Treasurer. President. His duties would be to call and preside over all meetings of the Commission, and give unity, method, and practical success to its counsels.

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The Vice-President would perform the President's duties in his absence.

The Secretary should be a gentleman of special competency, charged with the chief executive duties of the Commission, in constant correspondence with its President; be resident at Washington, and admitted to confidential intimacy with the Medical Bureau and the War Department. Under him such agents as could safely be trusted with the duties. of inspection and advice in camps, hospitals, fortresses, etc., should work, receiving instructions from, and reporting to him. He would be immediately in connection with the Committees A and B of the Branch of Inquiry, and of Committees D and E of the Branch of Advice.

The Treasurer would hold and disburse, as ordered by the Commission, the funds of the body. These funds would be derived from such sources as the Commission, when its objects were known, might find open or make available. Donations, voluntary and solicited; contributions from patriotic and benevolent associations, or State treasuries, would be the natural supply of the cost of sustaining a commission whose members would give their time, experience, and labor to a cause of the most obvious and pressing utility, and the most radical charity and wide humanity; who, while unwilling to depend on the General Government for even their incidental. expenses, could not perform their duties without some moderate sum in hand to facilitate their movements.

The publication of the final report of the Commission could be arranged by subscription or private enterprise.

As the scheme of this Commission may appear impracticable from apprehended jealousies, either on the part of the Medical Bureau or the War Department, it may be proper to state, that the Medical Bureau itself asked for the appointment of the Commission, and that no ill-feeling exists or will exist between the Commission and the War Department, or the Government. The Commission grows out of no charges of negligence or incompetency in the War Department or the Medical Bureau. The sudden increase of volunteer forces has thrown unusual duties upon them. The Commission is chiefly concerned with the volunteers, and one of its highest ambitions is to bring the volunteers up to the regulars in respect of sanitary regulations and customs. To aid the Medical Bureau, without displacing it, or in any manner infringing upon its rights and duties, is the object of the Commission. The embarrassments anticipated from etiquette or official jealousy, have all been overcome in advance, by a frank and cordial understanding, met with large and generous feelings by the Medical Bureau and the Department of War.

HENRY W. BELLOWS, President.

PROF. A. D. BACHE, Vice-President.
ELISHA HARRIS, M. D., Corresp. Sect'y.

GEORGE W. CULLUM, U. S. Army.
ALEXANDER E. SHIRAS, U. S. Army.
ROBERT C. WOOD, M. D., U. S. Army.

WILLIAM H. VAN BUREN, M. D.
WOLCOTT GIBBS, M. D.

SAMUEL G. HOWE, M. D.

CORNELIUS R. AGNEW, M. D.

J. S. NEWBERRY, M. D.

GEORGE T. STRONG, Treasurer.

WASHINGTON, June 13, 1861.

WAR DEPARTMENT, Washington, June 13, 1861.

I hereby approve of the plan of organization proposed by the Sanitary Commission, as above given; and all persons in the employ of the United States Government are directed and enjoined to respect and further the inquiries and objects of this Commission, to the utmost of their ability. SIMON CAMERON, Secretary of War.

Project of Declarations for the Consideration of the International Conference of Geneva, 1863.

Prepared by the Genevese Society of Public Utility.
[TRANSLATED]

ARTICLE 1. There shall be, in each of the contracting countries, a National Committee, whose duty shall consist in remedying, by all the means in its power, the inadequacy of the official sanitary service of the armies in active service. This Committee shall organize itself in the manner which may appear to it the most useful and expedient.

ARTICLE 2. Sections, unlimited in number, shall be founded, in order to second the Natioanl Committee. These shall be necessarily subordinate to the committee, to which alone shall belong the supreme direction.

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ARTICLE 3. Every National Committee shall place itself in communication with the Government of its own country, and shall ascertain that its efforts of service will be accepted in case of war.

ARTICLE 4. — In time of peace, the committees and their sections shall occupy themselves with improvements to be introduced in the military sanitary service, in the establishment of hospitals and ambulances, in the means of transports for the wounded, etc., and in pursuing the realization of these objects.

ARTICLE 5. The Committees and Sections of the different countries shall reassemble in International Congresses, in order to communicate the result of their experience, and to concert together on the measures to be taken in the interests of the work.

ARTICLE 6. — In the month of January every year, the National Committees shall present a report of their labors during the past year, adding to it such communications as they may consider useful to be brought to the knowledge of the committees of other countries. The exchange of these communications and reports shall be managed through the medium of the Geneva Committee, to whom they shall be addressed.

ARTICLE 7. — In case of war, the Committee of the belligerent nations shall furnish the necessary aid to their respective armies, and, in particular, shall provide for the formation and organization of corps of volunteer nurses. They shall solicit the support of the committees belonging to neutral nations.

ARTICLE 8. - The volunteer nurses shall bind themselves to serve during a limited time, and not to meddle in any way in the operations of

war. They shall be employed, according to their wish, in field service or in that of hospitals. Females will necessarily be assigned to the latter. ARTICLE 9. - The volunteer nurses shall wear a uniform in all countries, or an identical distinctive badge. Their person shall be sacred, and military chiefs shall afford them protection. At the commencement of a campaign, the soldiers of both armies shall be informed of the existence of these corps, and of their exclusively benevolent character.

ARTICLE 10. · The corps of nurses or volunteer helpers shall march in the rear of armies, to which they shall not cause any embarrassment, nor occasion any expense. They shall have their own means of carriage, victuals and medical stores of all kinds.

International Conference of Geneva, October 29, 1863.

Resolutions and Recommendations Then Adopted.

[TRANSLATED]

The international conference, anxious to come to the aid of the wounded in cases where the services of the military sanitation service should be insufficient, adopts the following resolutions:

ARTICLE 1. There exists in each country a Committee whose object is to cooperate in time of war, if required, by all means in its power in the sanitary service of the armies.

This Committee is organized in the manner which appears to it the most useful and suitable.

ARTICLE 2. - Unlimited sub-committees may be formed, under its direction, to assist this committee.

ARTICLE 3. Each Committee must be recognized by the government of its own country in order to be recognized and its offers of help accepted.

ARTICLE 4. In time of peace the object of the Committee and subcommittees shall be the means of becoming truly efficient in time of war, especially in preparing materials of all kind, and in instructing voluntary

nurses.

ARTICLE 5. In time of war the Committees of belligerent nations furnish help in the measure of their resources, to their respective armies; and in particular organize and put on an active basis the voluntary nurses, and arrange sites for the establishment of hospitals, with the sanction of the military authority.

They may solicit the assistance of Committees belonging to neutral nations.

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ARTICLE 6. On appeal, or with the sanction of military authority, the Committees may send voluntary nurses to the field of battle. These are put under the direction of military chiefs.

ARTICLE 7. Voluntary nurses on active duty in time of war must be provided with everything necessary for their maintenance by their respective Committees.

ARTICLE 8. They wear, in all countries, as a distinctive badge, a white brassard with a Red Cross.

ARTICLE 9. The Committees and Sub-Committees may assemble in International Congresses, to interchange their experiences and to concert on measures to be taken in the interest of the work.

ARTICLE 10. All communications between committees of diverse nations, for the time, is conducted through the Committee of Geneva.

INDEPENDENT OF THE RESOLUTIONS HEREINBEFORE CITED, THE CONFERENCE RECOMMENDS THE FOLLOWING:

(a) That the governments shall accord their high protection to the Committees which shall be formed, and will assist as much as possible the accomplishment and success of their object.

(b) That neutral rights shall be proclaimed, in time of war, by belligerent nations, for the ambulances, hospitals, and that it shall also be granted in the most complete manner for the official sanitary personnel, for volunteer nurses, and for the inhabitants of the country who give succor to the wounded and for the wounded themselves.

(c) That a uniform and distinctive sign shall be adopted by all sanitary corps of all armies, and to all persons attached to the service of the army. That a uniform flag shall also be adopted, in all countries, for the hospitals and ambulances.

Project of Declaration for the Consideration of the International Congress of Geneva, 1864.

Prepared by the Swiss Delegation.

[TRANSLATED]

ARTICLE 1. Military hospitals and ambulances shall be declared. neuter, and as such, protected and respected by the belligerents, as long as there shall be found there any sick or wounded persons.

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