In a report which he had submitted to one of the preparatory committees for the first International Conference of National Aid Societies for the Nursing of the Sick and Wounded in the Field (which meetings were the predecessors of the International Conferences of the Red Cross) at Paris in 1867, Huber-Saladin, one of the French government delegates, put forward the idea “of a jointly financed publication in Geneva, in the form of a journal, or a periodical bulletin to which every Central Committee would contribute news items”. The International Committee, of which Gustave Moynier was president, adopted this idea and shortly afterwards, in its ninth circular of 21 September 1867, submitted it to the Central Committees which had been previously consulted and had given their approval.