Today, we care for wounded soldiers. The University of Houston's
College of Engineering presents this series about the machines
that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity
created them. An odd item in the Smithsonian Institution: It
looks like an old Western chuck wagon with its canvas top and
somewhat square shape. It has a small red cross painted on the
side. This wagon is an important piece of history. To tell its
story we go first to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in
Italy -- a part of the little-known War of 1859. After the
battle, a young Swiss named Henri Dunant worked with other
bystanders to care for thousands of wounded French, Italian, and
Austrian soldiers. In 1862, Dunant wrote a book about that
ghastly experience. He used it to call for the creation of an
international group that would give relief in war. People
responded. Two years later, the International Committee of the
Red Cross had been formed with its headquarters in Ambulances
were fairly new at that time. Th