TY - JOUR T1 - <em>BJGP</em> Library: <em>On the Edge of the Primeval Forest: Experiences and Observations of a Doctor in Equatorial Africa</em> JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 531 LP - 531 DO - 10.3399/bjgp16X687433 VL - 66 IS - 651 AU - Cynthia Butlin Y1 - 2016/10/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/66/651/531.abstract N2 - Albert Schweitzer Forgotten Books, 2015, (first published 1922), PB, 222pp, £8.38, 978-1330405093A century has passed since Albert Schweitzer first worked as a missionary doctor on the edge of the primeval forest, in Gabon. This first book about his experiences there was published in 1922 when he was back in Europe on furlough; part autobiographical, more a mixture of memoirs and musings, this book and its sequel1 inspired me to emulate the great man in service to needy people in another country. It was his motivation which first gripped my imagination: ‘I had read about the physical miseries of the natives in the virgin forest ... and the more I thought about it the stranger it seemed to me that we Europeans trouble ourselves so little about the great humanitarian task which offers itself to us in far off lands …’ he says in the first chapter.As a teenager, I first heard of Albert Schweitzer about the time of his death (at age 90, in 1965), and … ER -