507 Eugenia Avenue
Madison 5, Wisconsin

NOV 24 1955

Dr. Stuart Mudd
Department of Microbiology
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia 4, Pa.

Dear Dr. Mudd:

Thank you very much for your invitation to join the symposium at the
next SAB meting. I regret that for a number of reasons I will not be able,
and had not pbanned to attend the symposium. It promises to be quite interesting
nevertheless.

I am also writing to ask an urgent and intimate personal favor. The
occasion of my visit to Philadelphia, when I gave an impromptu talk at the
University, was my father's grave illness. He had a cerebro-vascular accident
on Monday Sept. 28 which proved to be a massive right capsular hemoorhage
of unknown etiology. My parents have been living in N. Phila. during the
past few years, and he was taken to the Temple University Hospital, which
is conveniently close to their home. Dr. Michael Scott of their Neurosurgical
Departasnt has been managing the case; on Thursday evening (just after my
lecture) he decided to intervene and remove the clot, which he did/ with
remarkable success. My father's immediate recovery was slow but essentially
uneventful except for a continued bronchitis which necessitated leaving an
open tracheotomy till very recently. Throughout most of this time (2 ms.)
he has been under prescribed special nursing, but Dr, Scott appabently feels
that he is ready to be discharged. He has, however, a profound left hemiplegia:
the last I could learn, no function at all could be elicited in the upper
extremity, but there was a trace at the left hip. It is obvious that he will
need special convaleseeat care. He is only in his mid-fifties and it would be
shameful to overlook any reasonable effort a rehabilitation, at least to
where he might be able to walk. He has been, as you may know, a rabbi; while
the physical demands of his profession need not be strenuous, it may be too
much to hope he will be able to return to it. You can imagine that he has
not been able to earn more than his daily bread at his profession; my mother
has also been working, as a Hebrew School teaher, from preference as much as
economic necessity.My younger brother (about 14) still lives at home.

I do not man to lay my personal burdens on your shoulder, but these
facts are of some relevance to the next point. Dr. Scott and Dr. Baier had
mentioned a Rehabilitation Institute at the University of Pennsylvania as a
possible place for further care. It has been very difficult to Jeep in touch
with them (except upon my personal visits when I could get away between classes)
and they have put the burden of further decisions and arrangements on my mother,
who is quite unable to cope with them. I want to ask you if you can get me
any information on this Institute, whether it would be a reasonable place for
my father's immediate needs in his circumstances, what might be done to facili-
tate his admission—~ and I will have to ask what the likely fees and charges
would be. I would not bother you with this, but I hardly know where else to
tum for friendly advice. If you can suggest any alternative ways with coping
with this problem, please let me know. I will be very happy to hear from you
by phone (collect of course) at home (CE-3-2968) or my lab (AL-5-3311, Ext. 2318)
if you have anything you would prefer to communicate in thatway.

I am sorry that I did not have more time for visiting when I was at the
U., but I am sure the reasons were appreciated.

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg