Doctor and the Healer

A young doctor relocates to a small mountain village in rural southern Italy to begin his practice. He quickly runs into trouble with a local quack, Don Antonio Locoratolo, who views the new physician as a threat. The conflict sets the stage for a clash between legitimate medicine and fraudulent cures.

Don Antonio challenges the new doctor's legitimacy and tries to push him out of town. He continues to prescribe questionable remedies and potions to keep the villagers dependent on his services. The public squabble between the two men grows publicly and privately.

Don Antonio convinces the villagers not to get vaccinated against typhoid fever. He leverages his authority and fear to maintain the belief that his methods are essential. Marchetti finds his medical efforts undermined by the quack's influence.

To prove his indispensability, Don Antonio arranges for an old man to feign illness for several days. The supposed patient appears to improve only during a visit by Don Antonio, a staged miracle that reassures the townsfolk. Marchetti is left looking ineffective in the face of the ruse.

Pasqua, Marchetti's young assistant, has fallen in love with him, though he does not notice. Don Antonio's assistant Scaraffone gives Pasqua a love potion, hoping to complicate the doctor’s life. The potion triggers Marchetti's stomach pains, making him suspect poisoning.

Mafalda, the mayor's sister, longs for her fiancé Corrado who vanished fifteen years earlier while fighting on the Eastern Front. Don Antonio uses fraudulent fortune-telling to claim Corrado is alive, raking in payments from her devotion. The ruse sets up a dramatic confrontation later.

Frustrated by the deceit, Mafalda denounces Don Antonio to the police as a fraud. The authorities take the report seriously, but the charges do not stick and the quack remains free for the moment. The town's trust in medicine is further shaken.

The next day Mafalda receives a telegram claiming Corrado is alive and will meet her at the train station. The rumor stirs renewed hope and complicates her feelings about the quack's deceit. The village waits for a possible reunion.

Corrado appears at the train station, but his memories are muddled. He claims he was captured by bedouins and has been living 40 km away, unhappily married and asking for money. Mafalda is stunned as Corrado boards the next train, leaving more questions than answers.

Marchetti goes to the police to pursue justice over the supposed poisoning and Mafalda's denunciation. He learns that the charges against Don Antonio do not hold, allowing the quack to avoid punishment for the moment. The incident underscores the limits of law against clever deceit.

Don Antonio's niece Rosina is in love with a soldier from a poor family, which he forbids. Despondent, she takes an overdose of barbiturates, forcing Don Antonio to publicly seek Dr. Marchetti's help to save his niece's life. The episode exposes the consequences of the quack's manipulation.

Dr. Marchetti administers typhoid vaccines to the local population, signaling a return to genuine medicine. The vaccination effort counters Don Antonio's fraud and restores trust in science. The village begins to see the value of real medical care.

Don Antonio leaves the village by train as Marchetti's vaccine program takes hold. The quack's influence wanes while legitimate medicine secures a foothold. The film closes on a note of moral victory for science over superstition.