White Witch Doctor

White Witch Doctor is a powerful, true story of life and death, hope and despair in apartheid-ruled South Africa. It details a white surgeon's fight to save his beloved country during a time of social unrest and political upheaval, drawing readers into the world of South African culture, mores and folkways, superstitions, and race relations. The book opens with the story of a dramatic surgery in which the author brings back to life a patient who has been stabbed in the heart. A wide range of extraordinary surgical cases are covered, but they were dwarfed by the flood of black-on-black assaults in 1976, which are linked largely to alcohol abuse, with more than 2,000 trauma cases a month, peaking on weekends, and more than 500 on Christmas Day alone. Several of the bloody nights are portrayed in detail, together with many surgeries, including the first re-implantation of a human leg. Hunt leads the reader through the history and social structure of South Africa, the evolution and workings of the Apartheid system, and the violent events that helped bring it to an end.