• Known as Jack to his friends
• Born in Grantham
• An early move to Leeds gave him the accent and outspokenness of a Yorkshireman.
• Initially studied classics/ transferred interest to medicine. Awarded gold media on graduation.
• Consultant Surgeon
• “Although Jack Cason was a year senior to me during our medical student days in Leeds in the early stages of World War Two, fire-watching duties, manning first-aid posts, washing bottles and tubing in the Blood Transfusion Centre and emergency duties in the General Infirmary demolished any semblance of a hierarchy in the student fraternity. The fun, the fear and the future were all too painfully close for comfort. We came together some eight years later when we found ourselves travelling along a road of postgraduate surgical training, a road that had no Specialist Advisory Committee to guide us but was very much a do-it-yourself affair organised by the trainee himself! He had passed his FRCS a couple of years before; I had only just got mine and we came together in the Plastic Surgery Unit in Leeds under Michael Oldfield and Mortimer Shaw.”
• “Weeks passed before I could even get the “leading edge” of the drum to stick to the skin. To comfort me and counter my increasing despair Jack would say “. . . Nay, it’s not as difficult as all that! Just watch me again, carefully now” and when at last I achieved my first complete drum full of skin, I can remember as if it was yesterday Jack’s comment “. . . That’s champion!” This down-to-earth approach was no affectation. Like a true Yorkshireman he had little liking for the “cloth cap” image so popular with “Southerners” (i.e. everyone south of Sheffield). He weighed his words carefully and if he felt that some idea, technique, or statement was “plain daft” he would say so.”
• In 1942 he graduated MB, ChB, at Leeds and gained the Hardwick Prize in Clinical Medicine.
• He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the Shetlands, India, and the Middle East
• 1951 Registrar at The MRC Burns Research Unit at the Acci
• When Douglas Jackson was away for a substantive period, Gissane turned to Cason to run the unit
• The Jackson/Cason partnership was to flourish for over 20 years. 
• Went to Stoke Mandeville Hospital to get his plastic surgery training before returning to the Birmingham Burns Unit as senior registrar and then consultant surgeon.
• Between 1979 and 1982 he was a conscientious and successful Chairman of the Medical Staff Committee.
• He was an active member of the British Burn Association and the International Society for Burn Injuries and he was an associate member of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons and a fellow of the International College of Surgeons.
• Jack was a quick and skilful operator sometimes hard to keep up with.
• Outspoken as he could be, he was shy and not always at his best as a formal lecturer.
• He was renowned for his outbursts which never caused offence, many of his remarks were treasured and passed on.
• He was convinced that the best time for a consultant to see major injuries was as early as possible. He was always available to his patients and throughout his working life he was on duty on alternate nights and alternate weekends.
• In 1981, he published his book entitled Treatment of Burns. In it, he described the prevention and modern management of burns, with special reference to some of the studies of the Burn Research Unit over the previous thirty years.
• Together with Douglas Jackson he conducted a number of T.V. appeals and successfully reduced the number of burns casualties after bonfire night along with helping the campaign for grills in front of gas and electric fires and flame-resistant night clothes.
• Jack was due to retire; he was still continuing his full active clinical work when he died. He was anxious not to overload his colleagues while waiting for a new surgeon to take his place.
• At the time of his death he was working on a colour atlas of burns.
• Jack was a memorable participant in the first Accident hospital Christmas Show.
• Jack married a nurse he had met whilst at Stoke Mandeville Hospital and they had 2 children. 
• Jacks sudden and unexpected death was a shock to colleagues, amongst these medical nursing, therapists and others including his patients to whom he rendered devoted service.
• Jack was a great success playing Father Christmas on Christmas day.
• He enjoyed reading, gardening and being an amateur radio “ham”.

Patient: Sharon Buckley – ground breaking treatment.

4 years old when her nightdress was set alight by the kitchen stove in 1958

Sharon was rushed to hospital where she was christened because doctors did not expect her to survive. But survive she did, going on to endure 64 surgeries and many more treatments, including leeches and a graft using skin donated by her father.

2 consultants on her case -Douglas Jackson and Jack Cason

Mr Cason’s wife was a nurse lecturer and encouraged Sharon to train as a nurse

Sharon worked at Selly oak hospital for 30 years 

Paper by Christine Cason (Mr Cason’s Wife): A Study of Scalds in Birmingham (1990), C G Cason, The Burns Research Group, Birmingham Accident Hospital, Bath Row