Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/460

 GIBSON ;

and original as Astley Cooper's ligature of the aorta, five years later but also unsuccessful.

Two years later we were again at war with Great Britain and Gibson operated on Winfield Scott after Lun- dy's Lane and extracted a bullet. He saw the repulse of the British at Balti- more and from all this found abundant material for his surgical skill. Eight years he held the chair of surgery in Baltimore and after the retirement of Physick, the same chair in the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania.

Before the founding of the Maryland School he had married Sarah Charlotte Hollingsworth and became in time the father of three sons and two daughters. Later on he married a second wife and had three children. The careful recorder adds "he was five feet seven inches tall, broad and round-shouldered."

In Philadelphia, Gibson had a long and honorable career. For nearly thirty years he divided the surgical honors with George McClellan, and it was not until 1S55 that advancing age com- pelled him to retire from teaching. During his active years he produced his best book, " The Institutes and Prac- tice of Surgery, " which for eight edi- tions was a deservedly popular text- book. But there were other produc- tions which are better worth reading to-day: "Sketches of Prominent Sur- geons," "Rambles in Europe," "Emi- nent Belgian Physicians and Surgeons, " and his numerous addresses before the University students.

He had one hobby — to lead a crusade against tobacco; and became vice-presi- dent of an anti-tobacco society, though in other respects he liked the good things of life. But perhaps from the beginning what astounded people most was his absolute frankness. He publish- ed his surgical failures and told how in four cases he ruptured axillary ar- teries and the patients died. But, on the other hand, he had the unique ex- perience of twice doing successfully Cesarean section on the same woman,

GIHON

the life of the mother and of both chil- dren being saved. Of his remarkable memory one admirer tells how he made an off-hand bet that he could quote 300 lines of Virgil taken at random, and reeled off the hexameters until his audience begged him to stop.

He withdrew from the university at the age of sixty-seven, having filled the professor's chair thirty-six years, and for thirteen years longer — a keen bright-eyed old man — he watched the busy world. It was a tumultuous time for retired old age. However, he saw the end of the War of the Rebel- lion and resumed his travels when it was over and continued them until he died in Savannah in the winter of 1868. Among his writings are: "Rambles in Europe in 1839," Phila- delphia, 1839.

"Lectures Introductory to a Course on Surgery," various pamphlets on this subject published at intervals in Phila- delphia, from 1822 to 1850. (From "Medicine in America," 1903. Dr. J. G. Mumford.)

Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., 1849.

Med. and Surg. Reporter, Phila., 1868.

Richmond and Louisville Med. Jour., Louis- ville, 1869.

Reminiscences. Busey, Wash., D. C, 1895.

Med. in Amer. Dr. J. G. Mumford, Phila.,

1903.

Hist. Med. Dpt. of the Univ. of Penn. Dr.

Carson, Phila., 1869.

Gihon, Albert Leary (1833-1901),

Albert Leary Gihon, a naval surgeon, was born in Philadelphia September 28, 1833 and received the degree of A. B. at the Central High School of that city and graduated in medicine at the Philadel- phia College of Medicine and Surgery in 1852. Princeton conferred upon him the degree of A. M. in 1854. In the following year he entered the United States Navy as assistant surgeon and made several sea voyages, being in 1861 promoted to the rank of surgeon. Dur- ing the greater part of the Civil War he was on duty in European waters cruising after Confederate privateers. In 1872 he was appointed medical in-