The author was a nurse in Bulgaria during 1878, caring for the wounded of the war between Russia and Turkey. While there, she saw for herself the plight of lepers, and decided to make a 2000-mile journey to the leper colonies of Yakutsk in the depths of Siberia. She hoped to find a herb which was said to grow there and which was allegedly a cure for leprosy. Although originally she set out to improve the lot of the lepers of India, she ended up trying to help the Yakutsk lepers, and attempted to raise funds to build a hospital for them. Even though she had the support of Queen Victoria, the...