 Dr. Tom O Hara takes over a public clinic in New York s desperately poor Bowery section. Boy gangleader Sock Dolan resents Tom s interference in moving Sock s kid brother to a hospital, because Sock blames hospitals for his mother s death. Sock helps racketeer J.R. Mason sell food to the clinic, unaware that Mason sells cheap and often tainted food. When a number of patients, including Sock s brother, become ill from food poisoning, Sock is kidnapped by Mason to keep him silent. Dr. O Hara must find a way to rescue Sock and stop Mason s contamination of hospital food supplies.