A major pharmaceutical company is researching a drug that will combat the symptoms, and one of its sales reps, Celia, smuggles out a sample of it, which saves the patient’s life.

Celia’s reservations about the Montayne project are so serious that she follows Eli’s deathbed advice and resigns from her job, only to be called back when it's alarming flaws are revealed.

[2] David Woods, writing in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, comments that the novel is unusual in its broadly "favourable" treatment of the pharmaceutical industry, but criticises the "cardboard" characterisations.

[3] The novel was made into a TV film in 1986 starring Pamela Sue Martin (as Celia Grey), Patrick Duffy (as Andrew Jordan), Dick Van Dyke (as Sam Hawthorne), Sam Neill (as Vince Lord), Ben Cross (as Martin Taylor), Douglas Fairbanks Jr. (as Eli Camperdown), Gayle Hunnicutt[citation needed] (as Lillian Hawthorne), and Annette O'Toole (as Jessica Weitz).

[4] A review by John J. O'Connor, in the New York Times, describes the adaptation as "a prescription for prolonged stupefaction" and criticises the lack of representation of African-Americans.