The story of a medical doctor in the period of the Civil War, a saga of the journey from his first posting in pre-war Louisiana to his death in the 1870s, the novel revolves around a fanciful form of leprosy called Cain's Leprosy and the search for its causes and development of a treatment regimen. The under-nurtured Andrew, a quick study in things scientific, is a slow study in things human.
