German humanitarian, philosopher, physician, musician, clergyman, missionary and writer who was brilliant in each field. With a creed based on a reverence for life, during his lifetime he was called the true Christian of his time and the “world’s greatest living nonpolitical person.” He was the subject of an Oscar-winning documentary, appeared on the cover of Time magazine and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in November 1953.
Schweitzer was born and raised in Alsace, the second child and first son of a minister. As a kid, he ignored schoolwork, dreaming about God and nature and pondering the place of man in a sort of idealistic, stubborn reverie. Upon finding that some of these answers were in books, he discovered Jesus, Goethe, Nietzsche and more, turning into a first rank student as an adolescent. By the time he was 25, he had earned not one but two doctorates, in philosophy and theology and was a minister in the Lutheran church.
At age 30, Schweitzer enrolled in medical school in Strasbourg and had his medical degree eight years later. He was accepted by a Paris-based missionary organization to do medical work and in March 1913, he and his supportive new wife, Helene, headed for French Equatorial Africa (later the nation of Gabon). Their new home was primitive, with damp heat that enervated every day and every action. Insects swarmed and the food was abysmal. Injury, pain, disease and death were part of the life of the villager’s life and they were inundated with cases of skin disease, malaria, leprosy, dysentery, tuberculosis and diseases.
For the following 50 years, his hospital in the jungle was the center of life for Schweitzer. His wife’s health could not sustain the regimen, and she raised their daughter Rhena in Europe. After WW I, Schweitzer spent five years in Europe, returning to Lambarene in April 1924. In the early ‘20s, he published “On the Edge of the Primeval Forest” and by the ‘40s, he was world known as “the jungle philosopher.” A steady stream of volunteers, inspired by his commitment, served time at his hospital.
The young idealists found that Schweitzer was a real man, not a saint. He maintained absolute authority and when impatient with laziness or incompetence, he yelled at his natives and even hit them. Reporter John Gunther described him in the ‘50s as “august and good – but cranky on occasion, dictatorial, prejudiced, pedantic in a peculiarly Teutonic manner, irascible and somewhat vain.” He was also loved by the thousands of natives whom he helped, and he did more to help poverty-stricken Africa than had ever been even attempted.
For relaxation, he played Bach on a piano. He had a huge correspondence including a campaign against nuclear weapons, and on Sundays, he conducted church service. Often at night when the air cooled, he read late or wrote letters. By 1965 the hospital was composed of more than 70 buildings and could accommodate some 600 patients.
Schweitzer died at age 90, on 4 September 1965 in Lambarene, Gabon; he was buried on the banks of the Ogowe River. The hospital he left continued its work.
Link to Wikipedia biography