In this silent film, a mad scientist engineers car wrecks so he can experiment on the survivors.

Dr. Ziska, an insane surgeon who believes that he can bring the dead back to life, presides over a sanitarium where he conducts bizarre experiments. He selects his human subjects from passing motorists, whom he abducts and confines in a dark dungeon. When the evil doctor kidnaps Luke Watson, Johnny, Watson's clerk, who has just received a diploma as a detective from a correspondence school, sets out to find him. He penetrates the sanitarium and is captured by Ziska, who intends to use him in an experiment. Ziska also captures Betty, Watson's daughter, and Hal, the senior Watson clerk. Johnny escapes from the sanitarium and returns with help, arriving just in time to save Betty from a horrible death under the mad doctor's knife.