Surgeon.
Born at Edinburgh, Scotland on 26 March 1883, he graduated from the University of Edinburgh (MA 1904, MB & ChB 1908) and demonstrated in surgery there, along with conducting post-graduate work in London, England. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1913, and that same year came to Winnipeg to become Professor of Anatomy at the University of Manitoba, and later as an Associate Professor of Surgery and Head of Orthopaedic Surgery at the Manitoba Medical College. He published extensively in anatomical and orthopaedic subjects and also served during both the First World War, in Egypt and India, and Second World War, overseeing the Canadian Red Cross unit in Scotland. Following the First World War, he partnered with Herbert P. H. Galloway, Angus A. Murray, and George V. Bedford at the Winnipeg Orthopaedic Clinic. In the early 1940s, he introduced and perfected the vitallum cup hip operation for arthritis sufferers. As of his death, he was Director of Orthopaedic Surgery at Deer Lodge Hospital as well as an Orthopaedic Surgeon and consultant surgical staff at the Winipeg General Hospital.
He was President of the Canadian Orthopaedic Association and the Winnipeg Medico-Legal Society, a senior member of American Academy of Orthopaedics and the American Orthopaedic Association, and a life member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba, Winnipeg Medical Society, Canadian Medical Association, and Scientific Club of Winnipeg, the last of which he joined in 1914. Other memberships included the Winnipeg Winter Club and United Church. He lived at 261 Harvard Avenue.
He died at Winnipeg on 29 March 1956 and was buried in the Kildonan Presbyterian Cemetery.
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Winnipeg Orthopaedic Clinic / MacKinnon Orthopaedic Clinic / Howell Court (661 Broadway, Winnipeg)
“Winnipeg surgeon dies,” Winnipeg Free Press, 30 March 1956, page 7.
“Orthopaedist, Dr. A. Gibson,” Winnipeg Tribune, 30 March 1956, page 32.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
Winnipeg estate file #52328, Alexander Gibson, Archives of Manitoba.
Obituaries and burial transcriptions, Manitoba Genealogical Society.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough and Nathan Kramer.
Page revised: 20 January 2020
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