Edwin A. Harris Md

Munganga Edwin A. Harris Md

This book is titled "MUNGANGA: The Memoirs of a Country doctor" for good reason. It records the years of planning and education of Edwin Harris who always wanted to be a doctor, and the life he chose in the wilds of deepest Africa. (MUNGANGA is an anglicized rendering of the Swahili word, mgunga, for doctor or healer.) In his early years of practice in Southern New Jersey, he actually was a country doctor. Starting out during the Great Depression of the '20's, when money was hard to come by, office visits were two dollars and house calls were three dollars. Many times patients were unable to even afford that and paid with chickens, or veggies...though many times the service was gratis. For young Edwin Harris, MD, the sick had to be cared for! This book details how he met his wife Gladys, and how the two agreed to follow God's leading to the Belgian Congo about 1930, with their family of three. There he set up another country practice for the local natives. His dispensary this time was a tent set up under a tree, with Gladys as his "trained" nurse when needed. Also his young son Dick (who co-wrote this book) was his dispensary aide, washing patients body sores with an antiseptic solution. A prime motive for going to Africa was Edwin's interest in leprosy which was a rampant disease in that part of Africa. While out in the Congo during that term in the early 1930's the Unevanglized African Mission (UAM) went broke and the Harris family was temporarily abandoned in darkest Africa. But their trust and faith in God provided a way out and back into civilization. And the rest is history.