Summary
Summary of A Yankee Doctor in Paradise
Key ideas
Key idea 1
An unfamiliar assignment begins the journey
In a New York office in 1918, an American doctor hears that he is going to Papua. S. M. Lambert has to find it in an atlas. His assignment becomes twenty-one years of fighting disease across the South Pacific for the Rockefeller Foundation.
Along the way, he meets missionaries, witch doctors, cannibals and a queen. His humor sits beside a serious medical argument: island peoples die mainly from diseases brought by visitors. That concern gives his travels their larger purpose.
Key idea 2
Hookworm makes sanitation part of medicine
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Key idea 3
Village surveys overturn an accepted theory
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Key idea 4
Clear language cannot replace effective treatment
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Key idea 5
A bottle offers a new possibility
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Key idea 6
Belief shapes the reception of medicine
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Key idea 7
Local medical training gives the work roots
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Key idea 8
Contact puts island health at risk
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Key idea 9
Public health depends on shared work
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The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
Read the rest freeWho it’s for
Readers who love travel memoirs, island history and true tales of medicine in far places. It suits anyone curious about the Pacific, tropical disease, missionaries and the lively voice of an American abroad.
What this book is
A big American doctor stands in a New York office in 1918 and hears he is going to Papua. He has to look it up in an atlas. So begins S. M. Lambert's memoir A Yankee Doctor in Paradise, the tale of twenty-one years fighting disease across the South Pacific for the Rockefeller Foundation. You meet cannibals, missionaries, witch doctors and a queen. You learn how a bottle of cleaning fluid changed a campaign. Lambert tells it all with a joker's ear and a doctor's eye, and he argues that island peoples die mainly from visitors' diseases.
In this summary
- 1A tanner's son is sent to PapuaFree
- 2Hookworm and a campaign for privies
- 3Ghosts, planters and mountain trails in Papua
- 4A month with the Fathers of the Sacred Heart
- 5Pidgin, cannibal patients and the Sepik
- 6A cleaning fluid saves the campaign
- 7Sorcery, curses and the scattered islands
- 8The Central Medical School at last
- 9Rennell Island and the fate of a people
Key point 1 of 9
A tanner's son is sent to Papua
Lambert opens in 1918 in the office of Victor Heiser, the Rockefeller Foundation's Director of the East. Heiser announces Papua as if it were across the street. Lambert knows only vague talk of palm islands and cannibals who ask guests how they like their missionary.
He then tells how he got there. He is a tanner's son from Little Falls, New York, schooled at Hamilton College and Syracuse Medical, where his eyes begin to fail. Eloisa Tays, a mining engineer's daughter, tells him to finish his degree and come back with a practice. She waits five years.
His early years in Mexico and Costa Rica bring smallpox, kitchen-table amputations and a spell in jail. He is not sure he is ready for the tropics. That humility, and his self-mocking humor, serve him well when Heiser sends him first to North Queensland, where a hookworm campaign nearly kills him.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
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Check yourself
What did Lambert's surveys reveal about hookworm in Papua?
Right. “Newcomers carry the heaviest loads, so labor brings disease from villages to farms.”Not quite. “Newcomers carry the heaviest loads, so labor brings disease from villages to farms.”
What discovery gave the hookworm campaign new strength?
Right. “Within a year tens of thousands are treated, and the great worm campaigns gain new strength from a bottle on a shelf.”Not quite. “Within a year tens of thousands are treated, and the great worm campaigns gain new strength from a bottle on a shelf.”
What does Lambert learn medicine needs beyond treatment?
Right. “A Yankee Doctor in Paradise shows an American physician learning, island by island, that medicine needs trust, plain language and trained local helpers.”Not quite. “A Yankee Doctor in Paradise shows an American physician learning, island by island, that medicine needs trust, plain language and trained local helpers.”
Questions about A Yankee Doctor in Paradise
What is A Yankee Doctor in Paradise about?
It is the memoir of S. M. Lambert, an American doctor who spent twenty-one years fighting hookworm, yaws, malaria and leprosy across the South Pacific for the Rockefeller Foundation, and who helped create a medical school for islanders.
Who was Dr. S. M. Lambert?
Sylvester Lambert was an American physician who worked in Mexico and Costa Rica before joining the Rockefeller Foundation. He led health campaigns in Papua, New Guinea, Fiji and other groups, then retired in 1939 because of failing eyesight.
What is the Central Medical School in the book?
It is a school in Suva, Fiji, that trained islanders as Native Medical Practitioners. Lambert pushed for it for years. It opened in 1929 with students from Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, the Cooks, the Solomons and the New Hebrides.
What is the story of Rennell Island in the book?
Rennell is a remote island whose people lived almost untouched by outsiders. Lambert visits in 1930 and 1933, admires their gentle religion and health, and warns that trade and missions will bring disease. Later reports bear him out.
Is A Yankee Doctor in Paradise a true story, and is it easy to read?
It is a true memoir told in a lively, joking voice, with short scenes and many anecdotes. Lambert explains medical points in plain terms, so readers need no medical training to follow the stories and the arguments.
