Son of the Living Desert: Edmund C. Jaeger, 1887-1983 is an exhaustive -- some might say overwhelming -- book of assorted material about the man, and includes such minutiae as his medical history, from an injured thumb to nasal cancer.

Expected to be popular with people who attended decades of Jaeger's palavers (camping excursions with talks), the 466-page volume, 30 years in the making, may be daunting to the uninitiated, but has its moments of discovery just as Jaeger did in his wilderness wanderings -- most notably his internationally noted finding and study of a rare hibernating bird.

It includes an easy-flowing autobiography that Jaeger had dictated on tape.

"In 1965 I asked him to write his memoirs and he said, `You do it,' " said Raymond E. Ryckman, retired chairman of the microbiology department at Loma Linda University School of Medicine who self-published the book through Loma Linda University Press. "When Jaeger was alive and lucid, I knew that was the time to strike, and I got lots of information from him."

The book includes texts of Jaeger's speeches, a lengthy chronology and bibliography, footnotes and some analysis by Ryckman and James L. Zackrison, who has master's degrees in history from Loma Linda University and in national security studies from California State University, San Bernardino.

Ryckman, 81, approached several university and museum presses about publishing the book but found most wanted him to cut the material, which he did not want to do.

"A scientist looks at things differently than a businessman. I had a job to do and that was to tell the whole story, and I left little out," Ryckman said.

He knew the book's audience was mostly limited to scientists, historians and the faithful "palavarites," whom he had in mind, as they asked over the years when it would be completed.

"The only thing I could think to do is give them the whole package," he said.

But Ryckman, who has published 120 pieces of his own work, had to spread the workload over many years.

That was one reason he said he wasn't interested in writing a condensed version of the book.

"I decided I'd spent enough time on Jaeger," he said.

Son of the Living Desert, despite tons of information, doesn't put Jaeger's life under a microscope.

"It may not be disclosing, but, if you read between the lines, it can reveal a lot about a man who was representative of a particular point of view about nature and Man's place," said Vince Moses, curator of history for the Riverside Municipal Museum, which has an exhibit of Jaeger artifacts and is selling the book ($43 including tax) in its gift shop. The book is also available at the San Bernardino County Museum in Redlands and the Loma Linda University bookstore.

Jaeger espoused the 19th-century concept of the human body as temple. He began as a temperance lecturer and then as an advocate of outdoor life for its curative and regenerative properties. He attempted to emulate John Muir, and led the way for preservation of desert lands.

"Jaeger himself was an excellent writer -- his sense of the descriptive. Really colorful. Easy to read. He personalizes things. This was reflected in his articles as well," Moses said.

But he also held some rigid views. He couldn't stand a slovenly appearance and frowned on beards and mustaches. He didn't allow women on his field trips, because of the lack of bathrooms and because he thought they would be a distraction to the men.

Many of his views about the body began when his father, Phil, suffering from indigestion, went to Dr. John Harvey Kellogg's Seventh-day Adventist vegetarian health sanitarium in Battle Creek, Mich. The sanitarium and its body-cleansing practices were spoofed in the 1994 film "The Road to Wellville."

Jaeger said of his father's experience: "He not only recovered his health there and learned decent habits of living, but he became acquainted with a system of thinking that influenced not only our own family as a whole, but myself in particular."

But while his family were regulars at the Adventist church in Riverside where they moved in 1906, Jaeger preferred nature as his cathedral.

Son of the Living Desert covers why Jaeger was disfellowshipped from the Seventh-day Adventist Church (for lack of attendance), what he ate during a hospital stay, how he survived without a canteen in the desert, how he was hit in the head with a rock dislodged by a bighorn sheep, how he blamed himself for a 1956 accident that killed his brother (Alvin suffered fatal injuries in a car Edmund was driving) and was given electric shock treatment for the depression that followed his brother's death.

There is a letter from a woman who broke the male-only restriction of his field trips, and there is a chapter on why he left medical school (he decided the protection of nature was his calling).

Since Jaeger had kept no list of his publications, Ryckman and Zackrison searched a large number of periodicals, volume by volume, to create a bibliography of hundreds of his articles. Among his most successful books, which were reprinted several times, were The California Deserts: A Visitor's Handbook and Desert Wildflowers, both published by The Stanford University Press and also in London.

Son of the Living Desert, also addresses, somewhat defensively, gossip about Jaeger's interest in young men and seeming dislike of women:

Because of Edmund's celibate lifestyle and his continuous association with men and usually young men on literally hundreds of field trips, it was rather persistently rumored that he had sexually deviant tendencies. Drawing on the testimonials of literally hundreds of his students, Palaverites, and other associates, it can safely be concluded that he practiced not only celibacy but also chastity.

Long remembered will be the exceedingly handsome, lithe and lively young Mexican at Puertocitos, who out of pure friendliness, offered us handfuls of delicious boiled shrimp he had just taken from a steaming kettle . . .

I noticed a particularly fine red-headed boy. He amazed me with the gracefullness, agility and strength with which he tossed watermelons over to one of the other boys.

Women are still taboo on palavers that continue to be held. Jack M. Harris, who will lead the 88th palaver this weekend to an ancient trilobite site in the Marble Mountains near Amboy, said he honors Jaeger's vision of a male-only event that also excludes tobacco, alcohol, target shooting and motorcycles. Up to 100 people attend, several of them having come for 40 years. .

"Once they get hooked, they like the idea and bring their sons and grandsons," Harris said.

Harris, who was Jaeger's student at Riverside Junior College (now Riverside Community College) in the 1940s, considers Son of the Living Desert, to be a complete picture of the naturalist's life, ideals and ambitions.

"Practically every weekend he would go out and camp out in the desert and make it back for Monday classes," Harris said. "I always figured it was an honor to be chosen to go."