Johan Hendrik Christiaan Basting

Johan Hendrik Christiaan Basting (born  September 20, 1817 in Enkhuizen , †  September 24, 1870 in The Hague ) was a Dutch army doctor and a confidante of Henry Dunant , the founder of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement , whose activities he in the 1860s repeatedly supported. For example, his Dutch translation of Dunant's work Un souvenir de Solférino about his experiences after the Battle of Solferino was one of the first foreign-language editions of the book that initiated the creation of the Red Cross and the conclusion of the first Geneva Convention . In addition, he campaigned for the establishment of a national Red Cross Society in his home country.

Life

Johan Hendrik Christiaan Basting

Johan Basting was born in 1817 as the son of an officer in the Royal Netherlands Navy . He studied from 1834 to 1839 at the Reich School for Military Medicine in Utrecht . Among his fellow students was Franciscus Cornelis Donders , who later became known as an ophthalmologist . After completing his studies, Basting was appointed third class army surgeon in 1839. He served in various garrisons until 1853 , before becoming chief surgeon of the Gorinchem garrison in 1854 . In the same year he obtained his doctorate in Leiden on illnesses among soldiers in the garrison there and he married his wife, whom he had met in Gorinchem. He was then transferred to The Hague .

After the publication of Un souvenir de Solférino (A Memory of Solferino) by the Swiss businessman Henry Dunant in 1862, Basting received a copy through a friend in Switzerland. He created a Dutch translation of the book in which Dunant described his experiences after the Battle of Solferino in June 1859 , which appeared in April 1863 and was one of the first foreign-language editions of Dunant's book. In the same year he also took part in the International Statistical Congress in Berlin , at which Dunant, on the advice of Basting, campaigned for his idea of ​​volunteer helpers to care for war-wounded soldiers. Basting translated Dunant's proposals into German and presented them to the congress. The meeting between the two in Berlin is considered to be one of the most important events in the formation of the Red Cross, as it successfully contributed to the spread of the idea of neutrality of the aid workers, which stood in contrast to the attitude of the other members of the International Committee of Aid Societies for the Care of Wounded at the time and later became one of the fundamental principles of the Red Cross movement. In October 1863, Basting took part in the international conference in Geneva , at which Dunant's proposals were discussed by representatives from 14 countries and at which the idea of ​​neutrality was widely accepted.

He then worked again as an army doctor and was no longer involved in spreading the Red Cross idea on an international level. In his home country, however, in April 1864 he published a call for the establishment of a national Red Cross Society , in which he referred, among other things, to the lack of such societies on both sides in the German-Danish War that was taking place at the same time . He also visited the national Red Cross Society in Belgium , founded in the same year , which made him and his compatriot Charles van de Velde honorary members. In 1867, when he took part in the first International Red Cross Conference as a Dutch delegate, a Red Cross Society was finally founded in the Netherlands. He died three years later at the age of 54 and saw the first time the Dutch Red Cross was deployed during the Franco-German War . Shortly before her death, his wife, who worked for the local women's committee of the Red Cross in Gorinchem until her death in 1896, again contacted Dunant in several letters, who at the time was living in Heiden .

Works (selection)

• Een roepstem tot mijn vaderland. The hulpmaatschappijen tot verzorging van zieken en kwetsten aanbevolen. The Hague 1864
• The Nederlandsche Hulpkomités on the Roode Kruis. Hun werkkring in tijden van oorlog en vrede. The Hague 1868

literature

• Basting, Johan Hendrik Christiaan. In: Gerrit Arie Lindeboom: Dutch Medical Biography: A Biographical Dictionary of Dutch Physicians and Surgeons, 1475-1975. Rodopi, Amsterdam 1984, ISBN 9-06-203676-7 , p. 82
• Johannes H. Rombach: Two Great Figures in Red Cross History. In: International Review of the Red Cross. 16/1962. ICRC, pp. 351-361, ISSN  1560-7755

Further publications

• Beelaerts van Blokland: Dr. Johan Hendrik Christiaan Basting, 1817–1870. Published by the Dutch Red Cross, The Hague 1949

Web links

• PC Molhuysen, PJ Blok: Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek: Basting, JHC Leiden 1918 (Dutch)