Mad Doctor

The "mad scientist" (also known as the "mad doctor") is a stock character in fiction and genre movies. He (they're almost exclusively male) is generally depicted as a man of science who is absorbed in his work or research to the point of obsession. His wild plans, eccentric conduct, and scant respect for the ethical boundaries of his profession make him unpopular among his peers who tend to ostracize him or even expel him from their ranks...

Here are some of the mad scientist's (stereo)typical traits:

1. his ideas tend to sound preposterous or even irrational, although there's generally method to his madness, given his lofty IQ and rational thought processes.
2. his single-minded dedication to his work and/or research comes to the detriment of his personal hygiene and appearance (the mad scientist is often depicted as disheveled or unkempt on the silver screen).
3. his exaggerated sense of self-importance, coupled with a sense of superiority and delusions of grandeur, comes into play as he consistently underestimates the inherent risks/dangers of his actions (the tendency to experiment on himself can be considered a consequence of this short-sightedness).

 
Although rooted in Europe's tradition of alchemy - which flourished with renewed vigor in the Late Middle Ages - the figure of the mad scientist wasn't codified until the contemporary era which ushered in an unprecedented surge of scientific and technological innovations. In fact, the mad scientist's key traits were established in Gothic literature, starting with Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" (1818) and continuing on to the "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (1886) by Robert Louis Stevenson. As the 19th century drew to a close, the "mad scientist" torch was passed to the so-called "scientific novel" (here we have to acknowledge two titans of the nascent science fiction genre - Jules Verne and H.G. Wells).

Turning to the Seventh Art, the figure of the eccentric genius has been a popular one since the silent era, particularly in German-language productions which were heavily influenced by writers such as Hanns Heinz Ewers and Karl Hans Strobl. The list of these early mad scientists is potentially rather long, but here are some highlights (+): Dr. Hansen, Dr. Caligari, Faust, Professor Brinken... and who could forget the über-famous Rotwang from "Metropolis" (1927), a sort of cross between Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla (+).