The Primeval Forest / Edition 1

by Albert Schweitzer, William H. Foege

Overview

"There, in this sorry world of ours, goes a great man."—Albert Einstein, on Albert Schweitzer

In July of 1913, thirty-eight-year-old medical doctor Albert Schweitzer gave up his position as a respected professor at the University of Strasbourg and celebrated authority on music and philosophy in order to go as a physician to French Equatorial Africa (present-day Gabon). The Primeval Forest is Schweitzer's own fascinating story of these eventful years—a thrilling tale of his amazingly successful attempt to practice modern medicine and surgery in the face of wild elephant raids, marauding leopards, famine, an flood—a story rich in human interest and high drama.

Schweitzer describes how he and his wife, a qualified nurse, worked to establish a hospital in the steaming jungle at Lambaréné. At first they treated patients in the open air, amid unbelievably primitive conditions—with few drugs, medicines, or adequate instruments. But they worked tirelessly, caring for as many as forty cases a day, battling the misery caused by sleeping sickness, leprosy, pestilence, and plague. And, as the years went on, they gradually built a more permanent hospital to alleviate the terrible suffering of the Congo people.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780801859588
Publisher:	Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date:	07/31/1998
Series:	The Albert Schweitzer Library
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1952. Although he was highly gifted in science, theology, and music and as an author, Schweitzer dedicated the last six decades of his life to medicine and to a hospital he founded with his wife, Helene Breslau, in French Equatorial Africa, the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon. A true humanitarian, he used his Nobel Prize stipend to expand the hospital and to build new facilities for leprosy patients. The Johns Hopkins University Press published several of Schweitzer's books, including The Quest of the Historical Jesus, The Primeval Forest, and The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle.

William H. Foege, MD, MPH, is emeritus presidential distinguished professor of international health at Emory University and an early consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He is the author of House on Fire: The Fight to Eradicate Smallpox and The Fears of the Rich, The Needs of the Poor: My Years at the CDC. In 2012, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Editorial Reviews

Here, in Dr. Schweitzer's own words, is the inspiring and unforgettable account of his years in Africa; his thrilling jungle adventures, and his amazing experiences in bringing modern medicine and surgery to the French Congo. The record of Schweitzer's day-by-day experience is told so vividly that a responsive reader cannot fail to relive these stirring events.
—Richmond Times-Dispatch

From the Publisher

Here, in Dr. Schweitzer's own words, is the inspiring and unforgettable account of his years in Africa; his thrilling jungle adventures, and his amazing experiences in bringing modern medicine and surgery to the French Congo. The record of Schweitzer's day-by-day experience is told so vividly that a responsive reader cannot fail to relive these stirring events.

Richmond Times-Dispatch