VILLAGE OF THE OUTCASTS

When he was an adolescent, Robert Wulff asked God that he give him ""something worthwhile"" to do with his life. Now running communities for lepers in the jungle of Northern Thailand, he likes to think ""that my prayers have been answered."" In China as a G.I., he saw much suffering, ""particularly too much death,"" determined to return to Asia to help people, although he did not have a call to become a minister or a physician. Instead he became a social worker and through a noteworthy series of incidents found himself at the end of the railroad line in Chiengmai, Thailand, where the McKean Colony served the victims of a disease which to his mind ""is one of the most horrible afflictions a person can have""--and which the institutional approach, he feels, deflects its horror by terming it Hansen's disease and promoting a cheerful stance without presenting the attendant deformity of body and spirit upon it. Mr. Wulff's book, mostly in diary form, describes the days at McKean, trips home to speak, the setting up of his own village, marriage to a lovely Thai girl, and at last official backing through the United States Overseas Mission in Thailand. The book closes with an analysis of leprosy control methods written by Dr. Buker, formerly of the McKean Colony. Unpretentious, presentable. Try your medical-inspirational market.