To mark the 125th anniversary of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, the Henry Dunant Society organized a two-day symposium in Geneva from 26 to 28 October 1988 on the direct precursors of the Red Cross.

For three days, historians and people working on the theoretical and practical side of the Red Cross and other academic and private institutions sought to discover or rediscover women and men who, especially in the nineteenth century, had the same concerns as the “Committee of Five” for wounded and sick soldiers and for prisoners of war and a desire to see both the wounded and those caring for them declared neutral and standing relief societies created. In short, the purpose of the symposium was to ascertain the influence of that humanitarian sensibility which found tangible expression with the founding of the Red Cross in 1863.