IN THE AUTUMN OF 1779, William Jones, a labourer from Lichfield working and residing in Birmingham, seriously wounded his hand as the result of an accident, apparently while working a lathe. Although Jones and many other labourers like him had without a doubt previously endured similar injuries at home, in the community and in the workplace, the twenty-nine-year-old's experiences of health care on this occasion would be very different from most of his local contemporaries. Thanks to the foresight and generosity of Samuel Baker, a turner, who lived and worked from premises on Birmingham's High Street and had recently become a subscriber to the General Hospital, Jones would not have to pay for his medical treatment. In return for his donation to the newly constructed General Hospital, Samuel Baker was entitled to recommend several patients to the institution, one of which was his employee, Jones. This happened some days after the initial accident, presumably when the worker's wound showed signs of infection.

Once at hospital, Jones's hand was cleaned and bandaged by the charity's apothecary. Over the following days, he was carefully observed by Robert Ward, the surgeon who periodically visited the hospital to attend nine other surgical patients, three of whom were women, during the institution's first week of admissions. During subsequent weeks, the labourer's hand underwent regular dressing and undressing, was doused with various medical preparations, treatment which was occasionally carried out by Ward's apprentice, who had also been granted access to the hospital's wards. Jones was discharged from hospital more than two months later on 11 December and remained an outpatient until 11 March 1780. Though possibly a difficult case, whose hand experienced serious infection and perhaps the loss of several digits if not some movement, Jones was one of the hospital's first success stories. Along with all but one of the patients admitted on the same week in October, the labourer was eventually discharged as ‘cured’. In subsequent years, not all medical emergencies would conclude as successfully, but many more of Birmingham's inhabitants, not to mention pupils and practitioners, would be admitted to the wards of similar medical institutions and begin to experience medicine and health care in a hospital environment.