Shannonov put

A young Scottish doctor and researcher, Robert Shannon, a passionate bacteriologist, leaves a secure hospital career in Glasgow to investigate a typhoid fever epidemic in the poor industrial town of Dalnair. Full of ideals, he lives an ascetic life, working day and night in a makeshift laboratory and trying to develop a new vaccine. His fanaticism for science alienates him from people, including his beloved girlfriend Jean Law, a modest schoolteacher who loves him but cannot stand his obsession.

Shannon manages to isolate the causative agent and tests the serum on himself, almost dying, but saving hundreds of miners and children. However, the medical establishment (Professor Challis) takes credit for it and accuses him of unethical experiments. At the same time, Jean marries another man, because Shannon is incapable of returning his love. Broken, he goes to Ireland to work as an ordinary country doctor. There he finally realizes that science without humanity is empty. Jean (who has since become a widow) returns and embraces a life in which love and service to others are more important than fame.