Nevertheless, it is a fascinating look at what it really takes to run a hospital in the middle of Africa, with the only access via the Ogowe river and little in the way of supplies. It appears to be force of Schweitzer's personality which gets things done. Schweitzer was required to perform or supervise the most mundance of tasks. This was a theologian who knew something about hard work and hard lives. The book is out of print, but must have been a fairly good seller because it is still commonly found on the shelves of good used book stores.
Some people are.
They come to Lambarene with an image of a sort of sweet saintly St. Francis feeding the birds and they see instead a driving man fighting the jungle and African lethargy and they do not remain for a sufficiently long period to see or sense the goodness and saintliness underneath. I do not know. There are so many things for me to do here at the Hospital. Everything is changing. Now that the Africans have all become French citizens, our whole relationship to the patients is different.