In the underworld of debt-collecting, homegrown hustler Peg Dahl will do anything to escape Buffalo, NY.

A bouncer with a slightly murderous anger-management problem that she controls with the help of an electrode-lined vest she uses to shock herself back to normalcy whenever she gets homicidal.

The truth of how Mortimer Granville devised the invention of the first vibrator in the name of medical science.

In 1880 pioneering doctor Mortimer Granville,sacked from various hospitals for challenging his superiors' out-moded methods,gets a job with Dr Dalrymple,who relieves female patients' frustrations - or hysteria - with pelvic massages which allow orgasm. The handsome young doctor attracts a large female clientele and gets engaged to Dalrymple's studious younger daughter Emily but after the constant massaging brings on a carpal injury he is sacked. Fortunately an enterprising inventor friend has come up with a power operated feather duster which will soon be transformed into a vibrator and make Mortimer a fortune. Along the way he also realises that his heart really lies with Emily's older sister Charlotte,an outspoken suffragette who runs a home for disadvantaged women in London's East End.