Quick Facts
Biography
Dr Jack Stanley Gibson (1909–2005) was an Irish surgeon remembered for having advocated the use of hypnosis as an alternative to anaesthetics, not only through his surgical practice, but also through popular phonograph records, books, and videotapes.
Life and career
Gibson graduated from the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin, in 1933. The following year, he was the youngest surgeon ever to become a fellow of the college, at the age of 25. After locums in Aden, Nyasaland, and South Africa, he became Dean of Durban Medical School in 1939. During World War II, he served with the Emergency Medical Service in Britain, treating wounded soldiers.
After a brief return to private practice in South Africa, he spent the 1950s in Guernsey. In 1959 he briefly went to Hailie Selassie Hospital in Ethiopia as a surgeon, then back to Dublin to take an appointment at Dr Steeven's Hospital.
In 1965, Gibson began producing his self hypnosis material in popular media. How to Stop Smoking was Ireland's best-selling LP of 1971.
Dr Gibson died peacefully in the Naas General Hospital on Saturday 2 April 2005, at the age of 95.
Works
Records
- How to Stop Smoking (LP, 1971)
Videotapes
- The Power of the Subconscious (in which he performs eye surgery under hypnosis)
Books
- The Life and Times of an Irish Hypnotherapist (1989)
- Relax and Live (1992)
- Memoirs of an Irish Surgeon—An Enchanted Life (1999).