DR. GRINGO

The necessarily nameless Dr. Gringo went, for six months, to the back mountain country of southern Mexico with ""nothing and nobody to work with"" and certain inherited, ingrown situations to contend against. The doctor received $80.00 a month but a good many more rewarding returns from the pobres of the village of Lagos. From the occasional ""Doctor pronto"" emergencies, there were the continuing chronic conditions--the ""old disease"" (Lagos is in the leper belt), malnutrition, a good many problems affiliated with childbirth and children's diseases (in the absence of birth control, dysentery is the only check) and the three primary sources of illness, ""God's will, dramatic imaginings to fit the occasion, and mal aire."" Helen Butler has told his story with a steady, sympathetic interest--a sense of a small village such as this with its casual acceptance of life and death--even though, ""Dios sabe,"" it's hard to palp the potential audience.