The year is 1895, the place is London. Recently qualified doctor Eleanor Bramwell has an observational position in the East London Hospital, but faces resistance from the almost exclusively male medical profession, especially Sir Herbert Hamilton, the scalpel-happy head surgeon. As it happens, Sir Herbert has high hopes of securing funding for a new ward from Lady Cora Peters, who owns a property in Thrift Street. After agreeing to examine her friend, Lady Cora's sister-in-law Victoria Carstairs, who thinks she is pregnant, Eleanor makes a terrible discovery. The repercussions result in her banishment by Sir Herbert from the hospital, and it looks as if her only option will be to take private patients referred by her father. But Lady Cora is not the delicate flower Sir Herbert mistakes her for. She has seen Eleanor's success at saving the crushed foot of a labourer, Daniel Bently (and Sir Herbert's later erasure of this achievement), and is impressed as well by her efforts to save Victoria from Sir Herbert's knife.