Die ewige Maske (1935)

Professor Tscherko, chief physician at a Basel hospital, has a huge problem. Cases of meningitis are mounting in his clinic, to the point that it can now be called a full-blown epidemic. More and more patients are dying of this life-threatening disease. Tscherko’s young colleague, Dr. Dumartin, is working feverishly on a remedy. When he wants to test the serum on Adam Negar, a patient the hospital management had long since given up on, Professor Tscherko repeatedly refuses to let him. His reason is that there has been no experience with the treatment whatsoever—not even from testing it on oneself. When Dr. Dumartin tries his remedy on Negar despite his superior’s opposition, the patient temporarily recovers. But suddenly he suffers from breathing difficulties and eventually dies, apparently from unknown effects of the medication. Negar’s widow, to whom Dumartin had promised that her husband would recover, is beside herself and, in her desperation and uncontrollable grief, accuses the doctor of murder. The Negar case is immediately seized upon by the press and blown up into a scandal. The hospital is accused of conducting irresponsible experiments on its patients. Deeply shaken by the consequences of his actions, Dr. Dumartin wanders the city streets and falls into a severe depression. At last, he destroys his research papers by throwing them into the river, then jumps in after them to take his own life. But the suicide attempt fails, and witnesses pull Dumartin from the water. The experience has severely damaged his personality, and he begins to suffer from schizophrenia and hallucinations. Professor Tscherko’s investigation into Negar’s death establishes that Dumartin’s serum was not responsible for the patient’s sudden death. Instead, an embolism is identified as the cause of Negar’s death. Thanks to these findings, Dumartin’s research once again begins to be regarded as highly important. But his papers have been destroyed, and since his suicide attempt the young doctor appears to be mentally deranged. With the help of Negar’s widow and a ruse devised by his psychoanalytically minded colleague, Dr. Wendt, involving a mask through which Dr. Dumartin comes face to face with himself, Dumartin can be brought back to reality. Once recovered, he is able to complete his research and cure numerous meningitis patients.