The life of Jean Henri Dunant, the remarkable, dedicated man to whom the Red Cross owes its existence. His 'Good Samaritan' spirit grew and flowered into the idea of a permanent voluntary relief society that would work with absolute neutrality on an international scale. AT first he thought only of relieving soldiers wounded in battle, taking scattered, earlier efforts from history as his guide - but there was also the aftermath of war; outbreaks of disease, permanently disabled men, widows with children. He won the support of sympathetic groups with similar ideas to his own and welded them into a permanent organisation backed by international law.