Gibson, William (1680? – 1750)

« Célèbre vétérinaire anglais. Il fut d’abord chirurgien et servit comme tel dans un régiment de cavalerie, avec lequel il fit plusieurs campagnes sur le continent. Après la paix d’Utrecht (1715), il s’établit à Londres comme vétérinaire et exerça celle profession pendant près de quarante ans. Il s’était, sans doute, initié à l’hippiatrique pendant sa vie des camps; mais il dut beaucoup aux œuvres de Solleysel, que Hope avait traduites en anglais en 1708. De son côté, Gibson a, par ses écrits, propagé en Angleterre de meilleurs principes médicaux et plusieurs bonnes pratiques usitées en France.
Le premier ouvrage qu’il publia est The Farrier’s new guide, comprenant l’anatomie et la pathologie du cheval, dont la seconde édition est de 1721 et la dixième de 1754. Vint ensuite The True Method of dieting horses, 1721 (3e édition, 1731), qui correspond à nos traités d’extérieur. The Farrier dispensatory, comprenant la description et la préparation des simples ainsi qu’un formulaire, eut sa troisième édition en 1729 et sa neuvième en 1738. Enfin, un nouveau traité des maladies du cheval (A new Treatise on the diseases of horses), orné de 32 planches en taille-douce, fut livré au public eu 1751 (2e édition, 1754). Les nombreuses éditions de ces ouvrages en affirment le succès; plusieurs ont, d’ailleurs, été traduits en allemand. ll est bon de savoir que les planches anatomiques de Gibson ne sont qu’une copie de celles de Ruini. Il ne faut pas confondre ce Gibson avec son fils William, qui lui succéda et eut à Londres une certaine réputation, mais bien moindre que celle de son père. Il a publié un manuel des maladies du cheval (1755). » Neumann (1896)

« Gibson, William (1680?-1750) was presumably trained as a surgeon. He first appeared in the army lists in 1714, although his own account implied that he had served with the army during the war that had just ended. In 1714 he was with Colonel Tyrell’s Regiment of Foot and later he served with the 16th Dragoons under Colonel Charles Churchill. He was discharged shortly before 1720 so the three books he published in 1720 and 1721 must have been planned and prepared some time before in readiness for his return to civilian life. They were The farrier’s new guide (1720), on diseases, containing a sensibly abridged version of Snape, The farrier’s dispensatory (1721), a useful and innovative companion to the first book, being a pharmacopoeia describing drugs and their preparation, and The true method of dieting horses (1721). In his preface to the True method of dieting horses, which was dedicated to Churchill, then Governor of Chelsea Hospital, Gibson wrote that he first took up the study of farriery as a result of Churchill’s concern over the losses of horses sustained by his regiment.
On retirement from the army Gibson established a business in Duke Street, Grosvenor Square, from where he looked after the horses of the Horse Grenadiers and the Guards as well as those of fashionable gentlemen. He was responsible for the Guards and Grenadier horses by 1732 (he describes the influenza epidemic in that year) and he may have had them in his care from the point that he established his practice. After thirty years’ independent practice he published A new treatise on the diseases of horses (1751). Drawn from long experience and full of practical common sense, this was a marked improvement on his earlier work and laid the foundations for more precise knowledge.
Gibson died on 5 October 1750, four days after dating the preface to his book. A second edition was published in 8vo in 2 vols. In 1754; a third in Dublin, also in 8vo in 2 vols. In 1755, ‘… To which are added observations and discoveries made upon horses by the sieur La Fosse …’. The book also was published under another title: Short practical method of cure for horses by his son who was his assistant and took over his practise (Dublin 1757). A translation into German by Johann Georg Christoph Koch was published in Göttingen in 1780 with the title Abhandlung von den Krankheiten der Pferde. » Dejager (2014)