The brilliant, driven, and compassionate Hazel Sinnet serves as the novel’s protagonist. The 17-year-old has red hair, brown eyes, and an unstoppable passion for science. She demonstrates her impressive medical skills and knowledge by treating her cook’s injured hand and rising to the top of Beecham’s class. The illustrious physician praises his young pupil’s skills with dissection, noting, “not a single student has ever managed to cut so cleanly and swiftly” (106). Driving these scientific pursuits is Hazel’s ambition to cure the Roman fever, the disease that killed her older brother, George. By the end of the novel, she finds a treatment that extends the lifespans of patients with the Roman fever and hopes to prepare an inoculation. Over the course of the story, she often imagines herself garnering fame and acclaim for her future achievements. However, she fuels her drive with more than daydreams. To achieve her ambitions, she is willing to break the law and dig up cadavers for dissection. In addition to a brilliant mind, Hazel possesses a compassionate heart. She frequently compares herself to her late brother and believes that he was kinder than she, yet she turns her home into a hospital for the city’s most needy.