A young doctor begins his first practice in a small South Wales mining village, all idealistic and keen to improve the lives of his patients. Yet he soon comes to realise that many expect medicines when they are not really ill. As his brilliant career progresses, he will face a battle between his good ideals and love against money and fame.

Archibald Joseph Cronin was born in 1896 in Dunbartonshire, Scotland, and died in 1981. He studied medicine in Glasgow. This is an evocative description of life in a small Welsh mining village and how the medical profession was practised at the time. The novel was important in changing the medical profession itself after publication.