Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/459

 GIBSON

Virginia appointed to report upon an- esthetics, which they did in a full and valuable paper entitled "Report on the Utility and Safety of Anesthetic Agents" ("The Stethoscope," vol. i, April, 1851). He was an extensive contributor to medical literature and published reports of many of his most interesting cases.

He died in Richmond in 1865.

The following are some of his con- tributions to medical literature:

"Aneurysm of both Femoral Arter- ies Cured by Ligature." ("American Journal of Medical Sciences, vol. xii, 1847.)

"Dislocation of the Femur into the Foramen Ovale probably Complicated with Fracture of the Acetabulum, Etc." ("Virginia Medical and Surgical Journal," vol. iv, 1854.)

"Surgical Reports." Ibid iii, 1856.)

"Excision of an Osteosarcomatous Tumor of the Inferior Maxilla." Ibid iv, 1857.)

R. M. S.

Gibson, William (1788-1868).

"Scientist, scholar, artist, musician, traveller — some one should write a life of him " says Dr. Mumford in his "Medicine in America;" and if the diary which William Gibson continued for sixty years and which ran to 150 vol- umes could be found, every side of him could be written up.

He was born in Baltimore on March 14, 1788, one of twin boys, and was educated at St. Johns College, Annapolis, and at Princeton, leaving before his class graduated.

He began to study medicine with Dr. John Owen of Baltimore and in 1806 heard lectures at the University of Pennsylvania. Here, as at college, his refreshing frankness spoke out on occasion: he was afraid of no one.

He did not stay long in Philadelphia. In 1806 he took his bachelor's degree from Princeton and left for four years in Europe. The first three were given to Edinburgh where he took his M. D.

339 GIBSON

in 1809 with a thesis " De forma ossiuni gentilitia" and John Bell was his mas- ter in surgery. That same year he went to London and followed Sir Charles Bell, who became his friend. He took also to painting and studied under Robert Haydon, the eccentric artist then busied on Bell's great work "On the Hand." He added to this, music, ornithology, botany, fishing and boxing, so he enjoyed splendid health, but with all these distractions he was a brilliant student. Astley Cooper loved and predicted great things of him taking him on his journeyings about England.

The Peninsular War was then raging and Gibson entered with the greatest enthusiasm. In December, 1808, he with some friends chartered a trans- port and sailed for the scene of the fighting and was in time to see the battle of Corunna where his friend Sir John Moore was killed. Six years later he was travelling in the neighbor- hood of Waterloo and took part in the battle, seeing much hard fighting and receiving a slight wound. Indeed, he was an ubiquitous person, after that he returned to London and in 1S10 sailed for America. He had scarcely settled at his old home in Baltimore when he became interested in establish- ing a medical department for the Uni- versity of Maryland, and in 1811, with sundry other spirits of kindred ambi- tion, succeeded in launching the new school, himself in the chair of surgery. And at this time he was only twenty- three I The school throve apace and Gibson as a bold original operator seems to have been a great attraction. As he grew in experience he acquired a vast knowledge of and intimacy with the fine arts, literature, history, politics and men which, with his direct, homely, convincing way of lecturing captivated his hearers. It fell to his lot to do an operation which made him famous. In 1812 he tied for aneurysm the common iliac artery — an opera- tion never before performed on the living, a proceeding almost as bold