This work investigates the historical development of fever hospitals in Britain and the professionalization of the nurses who staffed them during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Margaret Currie examines the evolution of infectious disease management, focusing on how the specialized role of the fever nurse emerged within the broader context of the British National Health Service. The text argues that these practitioners occupied a unique, often marginalized position in the medical hierarchy, shaped by the specific demands of isolation and epidemic control.

Historians of medicine recognize this text as a significant contribution to the study of specialized nursing history. Readers frequently note the academic density of the prose and the extensive archival research that supports the author's conclusions.