1886 The young doctor Ivan Inozemtsev, an eccentric who is ready to inject himself with any newly invented drug for the sake of experiment, has so tired of the capital police with his exploding bottles that he will not be declared a bomber today or tomorrow. Out of harm's way, his colleagues help him get a job as a district doctor in the outback. But who knew that in quiet Byulovka there are so many nightmares that it’s enough for the entire Obukhov hospital: here you have diamonds at the bottom of the lake, and a werehyena, and ladies from portraits coming to life, and hordes of patients bitten by a cannibal, for whom there is no place for a long time on government beds. But if reality so actively plays along with hallucinations, maybe the doctor really invented a medicine without which medicine can no longer survive?..