The Hemisphere: Moscow Mercy Mission

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In 1959 the Soviet Union awarded Canada's world-famed neurosurgeon, Dr. Wilder Penfield, honorary membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences, a rare honor for a nonCommunist. Last week the Soviet government thought of Dr. Penfield again. In Moscow the Soviet's top theoretical physicist, Lev Davidovich Landau, 54, lay in a coma after an auto accident. To Dr. Penfield in Montreal went a telephone call from Moscow for help.

Though now retired, Dr. Penfield took off by jet, at Landau's bedside joined a team of French, Czech and Russian doctors. They decided that Landau could safely be moved from a general hospital to the Moscow Neurological Institute; and Dr. Penfield returned to Montreal feeling that, while Landau's condition was grave, it did not require major surgery. Physicist Landau, the author of a nine-volume work on theoretical physics that is a standard text at British and U.S. universities, is considered one of the world's half-dozen most brilliant physicists. He is also a key figure in both the Soviet nuclear development and space programs. Ironically, it was in Toronto two years ago that Landau was awarded first prize for his work in low-temperature physics at the International Congress of Physics. The Russians would not let him attend.