There are about 150,000 nurses in South Africa today, two-thirds of them black, and it is widely recognised that they will be crucial to any future health service. Yet the profession suffers from 'a major crisis of identity', divided between black and white, junior and senior, hospital- and university-trained.

This book explores the establishment of nursing as a profession for white, English-speaking 'ladies' in the last third of the nineteenth century, the class and racial tensions that developed as first Afrikaner and then African, Indian and Coloured women were drawn into its ranks, and the way in which processes of professionalisation further divided nurses.

The book provides a powerful metaphor for South African society. At its heart lies the tension between the universalist ethos of the healing professions and racial fears around images of white (female) hands on black (male) bodies - and black (female) hands on white (male) bodies.