A doctor who treats a person afflicted with leprosy using macabre methods is an unstable physician.
Although Rimel admitted that he wrote the story himself and Lovecraft only made stylistic corrections, the work is characterized by the very distinct style of the latter. Even though the writer from Providence congratulated his junior colleague on the text and claimed to have made only minor corrections, it could have been a typical courtesy on his part. A supporter of the hypothesis of Lovecraft's authorship is that Rimel did not create anything else in a similar style.