Albert Schweitzer (1875 - 1965)
Physician of Africa
Dr Albert Schweitzer was a German theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician, renowned in the twentieth century as a humanitarian and advocate of peace. Schweitzer received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Lambaréné Hospital in Africa, for serving as its physician, and for his “reverence for life” philosophy.
Schweitzer, the son of a pastor, grew up in an exceptional environment of religious tolerance and developed the belief that true Christianity should always work toward a unity of faith and purpose. He was deeply influenced by his father, who in addition to a broad-minded perspective of faith taught his son how to play music. Albert entered into his intensive theological studies in 1893 at the University of Strasbourg where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy in 1899, with a dissertation on the religious philosophy of Kant. A year later, in 1900, he received his licentiate in theology. He became an acclaimed organist, a church pastor, principal of a theological seminary and a university professor.
None of this satisfied him, and at the age of 30, aware of the desperate need of Africans for medical care, he decided to become a medical doctor and devote the rest of his life to serving the people of Africa. In 1913, at the age of 37, Dr. Schweitzer and his wife, Hélène, opened a hospital in Lambarene, Gabon – then a province of French Equatorial Africa. Here, 150 miles into the interior, with one of the worst climates in the world, he devoted his life to providing health care for the desperately deprived and primitive people of the area.
He wrote that the parable of Dives [rich man] and Lazarus had spoken to him. Europeans were "Dives," Africans were "Lazarus;" Dives had medical knowledge which he took for granted, while Lazarus suffered from illness and pain but has no doctors to help him. He planned to spread the Gospel by the example of his Christian labour of healing, rather than through the evangelical process of preaching, and believed that this service should be acceptable within any branch of Christian teaching.
Schweitzer’s work concentrated on service rather than conversion. His work in Africa inspired conservative Christians, particularly those who find kingdom-building rather than soul-winning more attractive. "The only ones among you who will be really happy," Schweitzer said, "are those who will have sought and found how to serve." Schweitzer considered his work as a medical missionary in Africa to be his response to Jesus' call to become fishers of men, but also as a small recompense for the historic guilt of European colonisers. He wrote,
"Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries they [the African peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans? … If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the coloured races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible."
The hospital never stopped growing. Schweitzer survived his second World War, and in 1953, at the age of 78, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for the year 1952. In his speeches and writings during the last years of his life, he emphasized the dangers of nuclear weapons and the nuclear arms race between the superpowers, and was instrumental in reversing American military policy on the testing of hydrogen bombs.
Although no longer practising medicine, he continued to oversee the hospital until his death at the age of 90. By this time there were 72 buildings, with beds for six hundred patients, and a staff comprising six doctors and 35 nurses. Albert Schweitzer and his wife are buried on the hospital grounds in Lambarene.