José António Marques

José António Marques (born January 29, 1822 in Lisbon , † November 8, 1884 ibid) was a Portuguese army doctor . He is considered to be the founder of the Portuguese Red Cross, which was established in February 1865 .

Life

José António Marques was born in Lisbon in 1822 and graduated from the Medical and Surgical College in his native Lisbon ( Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de Lisboa ) at the age of 20 . In August of the same year he entered the military and was assigned to the Batalhão de Caçadores nº 30 . In the following years he completed a career as an army doctor, in 1851 he was promoted to general doctor ( Cirurgião de Brigada ). Six years later, the University of Brussels awarded him a doctorate in medicine and surgery for his treatise “Aperçu historique de l'ophtalmie militaire portugaise”, which he presented at a congress for ophthalmology .

In 1864 he was commissioned by the Portuguese King Dom Luís I to represent Portugal at the diplomatic conference that took place in the Swiss city of Geneva in August of the same year , which resulted in the first Geneva Convention . Because of its support for the decisions of the conference, Portugal was one of the twelve countries that signed the convention on August 22, 1864. Around two years later, on August 9, 1866, Portugal ratified the convention.

On February 11, 1865, on the initiative of José António Marques, the "Portuguese Aid Commission for Wounded and Sick Soldiers in Time of War" ( Comissão Portuguesa de Socorros a Feridos e Doentes Militares em Tempo de Guerra ), from which the Portuguese Red Cross emerged. He himself became the first Secretary General of the Commission. He died in his hometown in 1884 at the age of 62.

Web links

• Cruz Vermelha Portuguesa - José António Marques, fundador da Instituição (Portuguese, with picture)