GIBSON 437 GIBSON reports of many of his most interesting cases. He died in Richmond April 23, 1865. The following are some of his contribu- tions to medical literature : "Aneurysm of both Femoral Arteries Cured by Ligature." (American Jojinial of Medical Sciences, vol. xii, 1847) ; "Dislocation of the Femur into the Foramen Ovale probably Complicated with Fracture of the Acetabulum, Etc." (Vir- ginia Medical and Surgical Journal, vol. iv, 18S4) ; "Surgical Reports" {ibid, iii, 1856) ; "Excision of an Osteosarcomatous Tumor of the Inferior Maxilla." {ibid, iv, 1857. ) Robert M. Slaughter. 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 con- tinued for sixty years, running to one hun- dred and fifty volumes, could be found, every side of him could be written up. He was born in Baltimore 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 lec- tures 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. in 1809 with a thesis "De forma ossium gentililia," and John Bell was hts master 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 himself on Bell's great work "On the Hand." He added to this, music, ornitholog>', botany, fishing and boxing, so he enjoyed splendid health, but with all these distractions he was a brilliant stu- dent. Astley Cooper loved and predicted great things of him, taking him on his jour- neyings about England. The Peninsular War was then raging and Gibson espoused the cause with the greatest enthusiasm. In December. 1808, he with some friends chartered a transport 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 on a subsequent visit to Europe he was trav- elHng in the neighborhood of Waterloo and took part in the battle, seeing much hard fighting and receiving a slight wound. Indeed, he was an ubiquitous person. Returning to America from his first visit he had scarcely settled at his old home in Baltimore when he became interested in establishing a medical department for the University of Maryland, and in 1811, with sundry other spirits of kindred ambition, succeeded in launching the new school, himself in the chair of surgery. And at this time he was only twenty-three ! 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 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 hii lot to do an operation which made him famous. In 1812 he tied the common iliac artery for aneurysm — an operation never before per- formed on the living, a proceeding almost as bold and original as Astley Cooper's ligature of the aorta, five years later, but, like that, un- successful. In 1814, the United States being at war with Great Britain, Gibson operated on Win- field Scott after Lundy's Lane and extracted a bullet. He saw the repulse of the British at Baltimore 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 (q. v.) (1819), the same chair in the University of Pennsyl- vania. Before the founding of the Maryland School he had married Sarah Charlotte Hollings- worth and became 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 hon- orable career. For nearly thirty years he divided the surgical honors with George Mc- Clellan (q. v.), and it was not until 1855 that advancing age compelled him to retire from teaching. During his active years he produced his best book, "The Institutes and Practice of Surgery," which for eight editions was a deservedly popular text-book. There were other productions which are better worth read- ing today : "Rambles in Europe," containing sketches of eminent surgeons; "Lecture on Eminent Belgian Surgeons and Physicians"
