MISSIONARY DOCTOR

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23412, 20 August 1941, Page 10

MISSIONARY DOCTOR

CURRENT BOOKS

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Congo Doctor. By W. E. Davis, Hale Ltd. 286 pp. (12s 64 net) _ m Dr. Davis spent 10 years In gian Congo, serving a comparatfoSgi restricted district the whole timer'll is content to keep his record and judgments within the bounds of that? experience; and that is one of merits of this careful, modest, iimSafc sational, but very interesting Dr. Davis prepared himself for 9 missionary life by training sfor years in medicine. He did more'Sffi?! acquire a professional skill, it se«il|| he developed what he must haveiSSgf to begin with, the scientific It has served him. well and make this a very good book. Dr. Dayjj established many facts, in the coufte-, - of. his work, which must have bbsa? unwelcome and upsetting. He doesnc{j,i gloss them over, or try to discount them. Thus, on the one side, he found that the sick negro would turn'to. hifcf for relief but the dying negro pre® ferred the ministrations of the witch-® doctor. On the other side, despite his • faith in antiseptic theory and practice.; Dr. Davis found that his negropatients, in hospital, recovered sooner, if they were allowed to be dirty enough to feel at home. He does not mind letting it clearly appear that 10. years’ experience has not far advanced! his “sympathy” towards “understand.? ing.” Yet clearest of all was for the services he could supply, that gave him opportunity, promts and reward. It is especially gratifying to tKcnrte* titloner in the Congo to feel that he h»s ministered to the acute physical needs of a numerous people whom he;-sand;])*j alone, could serve. Whatever the future , may hold for me, nothing can rob medf the satisfying feeling that for a n umber of years I was able to pull some -teeth and set some bones and lance some Msthat would have gone untreated but-for'; me; that I have been the doctor for count-‘ less souls who otherwise would have hut' no doctor at all. In writing of the Church in Congo, he describes with uncommon emphasis the difficulty of the problem—“the im. pact of the unsettling and disintegrating forces of the present age iipon-tfe wholly untutored and totally unprepared mind of the Central Afrioh’’; and, again with uncommon emphasis! he declares his confidence in the “ephvictions and enthusiasms of the 3bdigenous leadership of the counts??--that of the young men educated inthe schools, both Protestant and Catholic. In an excellent chapter pn Education” be states the stte problem again—“a hundred generationswithout a single book or written word,. and then with startling suddenness a European school!”—and shakes im head over “the habit of expecting far too much of them.” But! he says, “they are not dumb—they are-just different.” Dr. Davis’s book strengthens the hope that patience, integrity, and. wisdom like Mis own can master this difficulty of distance. ' . ■ NEWMAN’S WAR One Man’s Year. By Bernard New* man. Gollancz. 277 pp. (13/6.) Through Whltcombe and Tombs, Ltd. . . ’ Readers of Captain Newman's lively and realistic spy stories will get special fun and profit out of this book, because; they will -see again and again where the facts he can vouch for fit into the fiction in which he improves on them, just a little. Remember the harmless coffee advertisement in “Siegfried Spy,” which told the German spy where to pop in, to lodge information or get directions? • There is a, well-known Continental brand, of chicory, "Pascha.” • The proprietors naturally supplied suitable advertising material to grocers' shops. If .orft ot these posters appeared in a certain -posi*; tion over a shop [in Belgium], then man parachutists or the local Nazis'in German- pay knew that here they could get food, instructions, and , money—and could leave messages for transmission;* Germany. When eventually the meW , wal discovered, all the shops bearing'® - “Pascha” sign were promptly raided, .and very interesting discoveries were madeunfortunately, far too .late. ' There are plenty of such fact-ffcti® links in this book, which described Captain Newman’s experience as a lecturer in France, during the stand-still phase of the war, and then in England, after Dunkirk, when he toured for the, Ministry of Information. An extremely interesting section is that in which'M records his impressions of the Maginot fine troops, keen, efficient, confident, and of the French field reserves,-, illequipped, under-trained, poorly led, and moody; but it does not matter where the reader turns, he will be informed, startled, cheered, and amused, REVOLUTION The Revolution Is On. By M. % Fodor. Allen and Unwin. 237 PP(10/6 net.) f Mr Fodor, a European journalist of long experience and high credit.!!®* gives in his first six or seven dapters a close and appalling view OfuM devices by which Nazi Germany rotted and prepared her neighbours for tber fall. He passes, then, to a consideration of the revolutionary origins am procedures of Nazism, Fascism, am Bolshevism, among which he fin very strong -affinity. NevOTKW what he describes as the “NaOTf* Socialist”, phase of revolution, as exhibited in Germany, Italy, Russia, ana even Japan, is in his view-merely • convenient balf-way (or quarter-oi-the-way) house on the long tralpw the revolution.” Whether ■ Nazi® triumphs or is defeated, ‘ the social and economic strucwff will go on: two major one generation are bound t° acc ~;, rath it. But Mr Fodor in these; more deductic and prophetic chapters smp to waver with the wavering-sens® in which he uses the word revolutionMiss Dorothy Thompson detects uncertainty in an introduction wmc no reader should pass over, 5 though-' 1 is better read last than first. AT A GLANCE Prospecting “There is a simple way of demoting useful minerals from wortmes i rock,” says Mr lon L. Idriess; andbjj I book, Fortunes in Minerals (Aw® and Robertson. 128 pp. 10/-.) is an m count of the simple he . ijf*? and how to make them. 'Mr Graham, Under-Secretary for MmeSP New South Wales, observes in a snot foreword that in many books oil WK ing the discussion of theory.is cap*? far beyond the training and the practical miner and the proa?*-, tor. He commends this one for its practical utility as a guide to_tne„ currence, testing, and uses of the w known minerals and, also, or common earths for which indusu uses have been developed. Rilke Vol. 11l in the New Hogarth Library of selections from modern poets » Selected Poems of Rainer Maria itu* in the translation of Mr J. B. .L® man. Most of the poems are from volumes previously issuea . same publisher! but the translation . some has,been revised, and oneisn. printed for the first time. seeking an introduction to this famous of modern Austrian poets find no better one.—Hogarth 80 pp., 2/6 net. New Order .. , Mr C. B. Purdom will interest planners, particularly abstracting with his elaborate designs for Order (J. M. Dent and Sons £ pp. 7/6 net.), which proceeds iron reorganisation of the unit State British Commonwealth, Europe,' JgJ the world. “The 'aim °* . j Order,” says Mr Purdom, is feet man, conceived and nuriWTfSjjjj community”; but he says is less laughable and more useiHM*r; that.