Letter from Wilder Penfield to William Leggat, August 30, 1945.

This is a typewritten letter from Dr. Wilder Penfield to Lieutenant Colonel William Leggat, President of the Quebec Provincial Division of the Canadian Red Cross Society. In the letter, Dr. Penfield explains that the Montreal Neurological Institute’s new Military Annex, while largely prepared to receive patients, still lacked several specialized lights which were needed for brain surgery operations and for photographing such operations. Those items were not being supplied by the military, and the institute had yet to find a donor which was willing to contribute to their purchase. While he never explicitly says so in the letter, Dr. Penfield may have been suggesting that the Red Cross contribute to the purchasing of the required lights. However, Dr. Penfield does end the letter by explicitly thanking the Red Cross for supplying the patient wards with radios, as well as for forthcoming equipment which the Red Cross was donating from its blood bank. This letter is from August 30, 1945.

A/N 10-2