Life on the Edge : New Generation Publishing : 9781803692609 : 180369260X : 04 Apr 2022 : The highest echelons of civilised society, for example the law and medicine are governed by orthodox practice. But from time to time a mutant gene will spawn an unorthodox practitioner, often leading to all sorts of carnage, but also occasionally to an inspiring and fascinating life. Sam Ramsay Smith's unorthodox career started as a choral scholar in Ely Cathedral. After leaving school in 1964 he spent a year doing Voluntary Service Overseas in West Africa. His early adventures there engendered his enduring attraction to Africa. By the time he started at Liverpool Medical School in 1965 Sam had already performed surgical operations in the Cameroun rain forest and done ward rounds with Dr Albert Schweitzer at Lambaréné in Gabon. In between his medical and surgical studies Sam went to war in Biafra, became a flying surgeon in Kenya, and later the physician and surgeon to the king of the Bakuba tri