Lest We Forget: Orthopaedics at the Massachusetts General Hospital, 1900-1996 (William L. Bauhan, published for Orthopaedic Service, MGH, $30) is an account of the development of a key branch of modern medicine by an author exceedingly well qualified to render it, Carter R. Rowe, M.D. '33, associate clinical professor of orthopedic surgery emeritus. A general reader might not think to open the book, however, and would miss the following anecdote from the chapter "Some Personal Recollections."

Esposito mended.Boston Globe photo

The abduction of Phil Esposito...occurred during the period 1969 to 1972, when the Boston Bruins had won two Stanley Cups within three years, and were number one in the National Hockey League. In a game against the New York Rangers at the Boston Garden, Phil Esposito had just fallen when a Ranger player, skating at full speed, landed on his outstretched, internally rotated right leg. Those close by in the stands could hear his knee crunch. I saw him immediately afterwards in the emergency ward at the MGH. He knew his knee was badly injured, but pleaded to go home rather than be admitted, as he had never been in a hospital before. (To have escaped hospitalization was indeed unusual for a seasoned professional National Hockey League player.) I had to impress on Phil that the ligaments of his knee were seriously torn and that his career as a hockey player depended on a strong, stable knee. In spite of his reservations, he consented to being admitted and to having surgery. The next day we repaired the torn ligaments of his right knee. Postoperatively his right leg was immobilized in a long-leg plaster cast and suspended in a Balkan frame. When making evening rounds on the third postoperative day, I received an emergency call:

"Dr. Rowe, please call Phillips House 5. Urgent." I called.

"Is this Dr. Rowe?" asked an obviously disturbed nurse.

"Yes, what's the problem?"

"Dr. Rowe, I don't know what to say--Phil Esposito is not in his room, and neither is his bed!"

"I'll be right up."

True enough--not a sign of Phil, nor his bed, in the room. Just at this time we heard that a patient in a Balkan frame bed was being hurriedly pushed through the main corridor of the hospital and out of the north entrance. Another report quickly followed that a bed with a patient in it, and a number of escorts, was seen entering the Branding Iron Bar, across the street from the hospital. I immediately called the Branding Iron. Bobby Orr answered the telephone. "Doc, don't worry, we are handling Phil just like a baby. He's having a beer, and we will be back in fifteen minutes." Actually they were back in fifteen minutes, with one wheel of the bed missing, but otherwise with the passenger and leg in acceptable shape....

The north door of the hospital was broken a bit getting the bed and large frame out, but somehow it was successfully accomplished. The Boston Globe headline the next morning, "Patient abducted from Mass. General Hospital in his bed," was followed by an article with many theories of what must have taken place. I reported it at rounds that day, simply as a "patient complication."