Albert Schweitzer the Blockhead

American Minute from William J. Federer

Albert Schweitzer was born JANUARY 14, 1875, in a village in Alsace, Germany.

A Lutheran pastor’s son and acclaimed for playing the organ, he earned doctorates in philosophy and theology, was pastor of St. Nicholai’s Church, principal of St. Thomas College, and professor at University of Strasbourg.

Then, at age 30, he read a Paris Missionary Society article on the desperate need for physicians in Africa. To everyone’s dismay, he enrolled in medical school and became a medical missionary, founding a hospital in the jungle village of Lambarene, Gabon, west central Africa.

A friend of Albert Einstein, Albert Schweitzer won the Nobel Peace Prize and used the prize money to build a leper colony.

He visited the United States in 1949 and his daughter married an American doctor volunteering at the hospital.

Overcoming innumerable difficulties, Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote: “One day, in my despair, I threw myself into a chair in the consulting room and groaned out: ‘What a blockhead I was to come out here to doctor savages like these!’

Whereupon his native assistant quietly remarked: ‘Yes, Doctor, here on earth you are a great blockhead, but not in heaven.’”

William J. Federer is a nationally recognized author, speaker, and president of Amerisearch, Inc, which is dedicated to researching our American heritage. The American Minute radio feature looks back at events in American history on the dates they occurred, is broadcast daily across the country and read by thousand on the internet.

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