In the 1840s, a young man named Silas Weir begins practicing medicine in Pennsylvania. Though he is considered inept by family, neighbors, and even his mentor, Dr. Weir discovers he has a gift for phlebotomy, treating patients by bleeding them to purify their bodies. But when an experimental procedure goes horribly wrong, Dr. Weir is forced to start over, relocating his family to Trenton, New Jersey, and taking a position at the New Jersey State Asylum for Female Lunatics. There, in the hopes of proving his detractors wrong, Dr. Weir continues practicing dangerous procedures, and soon becomes infatuated with Brigit - a pregnant woman he treats - whom he tries to take her under his wing as an apprentice. As Dr. Weir's experiments grow more intense - and as he isolates himself from his family and the world beyond the facility - he grows obsessed with Brigit and the other residents who remain at his mercy, and before long, establishes himself as "the father of gyno-psychiatry."

This is a work of fiction incorporating episodes from the lives of the historic J. Marion Sims, M.D. (1813-1883), "The Father of Modern Gynecology"; Silas Weir Mitchell, M.D. (1829-1914), "The Father of Medical Neurology"; and Henry Cotton, M.D. (1876-1933), Director of the New Jersey Lunatic Asylum, 1907-1930.