DOCTOR IN BOLIVIA

Dr. Mauther, for some reason the ""Martin Fischer"" of this autobiographical account, came to Bolivia as a refugee from Nazi Austria- an ""amputee"" bound to the past and hoping to find the future as well as himself in the Bolivian jungle- as a public health officer. The parts of his book which deal with his doctoring are usually fairly interesting; along with his inexperience- there's some tentative emergency surgery- he had to offset the malevolent attitude and sometimes malpractice of the local curandero. There are also some kindly portraits- of the patriarchal Don Socrates who took him in hand when he came to his first stop- Santa Morena; of the emasculated fat man, Pierre, who dies while he is down there; etc. But the emotional encounters which help to promote his own self-healing (from Carlotta who welcomes him under her mosquito netting to Elena who indicates his limitations) lack reticence and contribute little to the general interest of the account which is overlong and sometimes overwritten.