Moon Madness: Dr. Louise Aall, Sixty Years of Healing in Africa

Moon Madness:
Dr. Louise Aall, Sixty Years of Healing in Africa
by Alan Twigg

(Ronsdale Books, 2019) $21.95 / 9781553805939

Review by Valerie Green, The British Columbia Review, January 11, 2021

In writing the true-life story of Dr. Louise Aall (pronounced All), author Alan Twigg has produced a spellbinding biography about an incredible woman.

For sixty years, Dr. Aall devoted her life to healing the sick in Africa, establishing a clinic to treat patients with epilepsy (initially known as moon madness — kifafa in Swahili), while at the same time continually researching and writing papers about epilepsy in order to help obliterate the stigma and lack of education surrounding this disease in Africa.

Dr. Aall’s story is both refreshing and unusual and tells of how a shy, introverted young woman did great things to change the world through determination and fortitude. Twigg has presented the reader with a biography that will definitely inspire all those who read it.

Louise Aall was born in Oslo, Norway, in 1931. She was the second child of Lily Weiser-Aall, an ethnologist, and Anathon Aall, a professor of philosophy and psychology. Louise and her older brother, Cato, with whom she was especially close, and her younger sister, Ingrid, were largely home-schooled by their parents who always encouraged them to read above all else.

From an early age, Louise knew she must aspire to great things as she was part of a family of high achievers. In addition, both her paternal and maternal ancestors had played a large part in the history of Norway.

Despite the pressure this might have put upon a young child, Louise recalls her childhood as being “mostly happy — full of music, laughter and learning…. ” (p. 2) There was also the occasional beating from an over-zealous nanny who was instantly fired once the beatings came to light.

Twigg intersperses the story with Louise’s own words, which begin when she explains how her father’s deteriorating health during the 1930s was never discussed. “In Norway, people don’t talk about illnesses … unlike in North America where people love to talk about illness.” She added, “I don’t like that at all. It embarrasses me.” This is a somewhat strange comment in view of her lifelong profession in the medical field.

The coming of war in 1940 drastically changed Louise’s life and that of her family. During those years they moved from German-occupied Oslo to their country house, during which time Louise’s father’s health deteriorated even further and he began to experience hallucinatory episodes. He died in 1942 of Parkinson’s Disease.

In 1946 Louise’s brother and sister were allowed to return to Oslo but Louise remained with her mother and indulged her passion for reading, teaching herself to also read in Swedish and Danish and learn to play the piano. Over the next two years, she decided she wanted to become doctor.

By 1958 Louise had completed all her medical exams and then for one more year studied tropical medicine in Switzerland. In 1959 she was offered a small salary to conduct research in Africa. Thus began her life-long love affair with the African continent.

The author later points out, “Her love affair with Africa was a lifelong commitment — a passion — and she had to wonder if — it would be the most important relationship she would ever have. It was certainly the longest” (p. 196).

Although she loved her work in Africa, she often questioned herself about whether she should have married and had children — but her relationships with men were few and far between.

For the next few years she began her important medical work in the field through twenty Catholic missions. This often entailed long days of travelling to outlying regions either by truck or by bike. Sometimes she had to walk for hours to reach her destination, but she loved the work as she knew she was laying the foundation for her future epilepsy clinic at Mahenge.

However, when called by the Norwegian Red Cross to head to the Belgian Congo in 1960, she didn’t hesitate — despite the dangers involved.

Author Alan Twigg describes this perilous time in detail as well as her future meeting back in Lambarene in Gabon with Dr. Albert Schweitzer, with whom she formed a special bond of understanding.

In 1963, back in Europe while undertaking further neurological training under Professor H. Landolt, she met Wolfgang Jilek, and agreed to allow him to accompany her back to Mahenge, where their relationship developed. They were eventually married with two wedding ceremonies in Oslo and Vienna.

They both were inspired to study further the subjects of transcultural psychiatry and epidemiology at McGill University, so they set sail for Canada. During those next few years they wrote many papers on those subjects and in 1965 Louise received her McGill diploma in psychiatry. During a cross-country holiday they both fell in love with the beauty of British Columbia, where they decided to settle.

But Louise’s love of Africa always called to her, and once again Twigg describes those future visits with explicit detail as she desperately tries to re-establish her clinic while continuing to study and broaden her medical knowledge.

In 1979, Louise and Wolfgang adopted a four-year-old girl from an orphanage in Bogota, Colombia, and little Martica became part of their family.

Alan Twigg has presented a biography rich with medical information alongside the personal and amazing life of a woman whose devotion to healing is second to none. At the end of the book he has included research and scientific papers written by both Louise and Wolfgang Jilek, as well as an Appendix with letters written in 1992 to Dr. Aall by two women — a 17 year-old and a 24 year-old — who thanked her for dispelling the notions that epileptic seizures were unnatural. They hoped that everyone would come to understand that these seizures could be controlled with medication. I guarantee these letters will move readers and enable them to understand the prejudices Louise had to fight in Africa.

Even those with little or no medical knowledge will be moved by this biography of an incredible woman, whose work and career needed to be documented both for future generations and for the purpose of tropical medical research.

Sixty years after Louise first encountered a small boy who believed his life was ruined because of “moon madness,” her revitalized clinic for epileptic patients at Mahenge still operates today with renewed hope (p. 209).

Louise Jilek-Aall died January 24, 2022, in Tsawwassen, BC. 

Author Alan Twigg has written many books and biographies, but is perhaps best known as the creator of BC BookWorld, the ABCBookWorld reference service, BC BookLook news service and the Literary Map of BC, all of which have enabled British Columbian writers to have a voice in today’s world. In 2014 Twigg was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.