Together with his story "The Howling Hall", the author has given us a peek into the part of the history of St. Mungo's Hospital and the evolution of the treatment of lycanthropy. Stories such as these give us the understanding that the magical culture is not conceived as being static or immutable; developments and advances occur, as in the non-magical world. The state of the art in past generations was not what it is today.

The protagonist, Damocles Belby, is not a completely lovable hero. In Chapter 2 the young Damocles shows traces of the prickliness that marks the older Damocles in Chapter 1. This prickliness is also hinted at in the references to his failed romance with Poppy (why did she refuse him?) and his assignment to the unpopular dead-end job in Stokeley Ward (how had he offended the administrators?) Both these points could be explored in further stories; maybe the author intends to do so.

The writing is graceful and fluid. The story is easy to read, easy to follow, with interesting details that enrich the scene.

The timeline seems a little uncertain. In Chapter 2, "1959", Damocles states that he is 26 years old and has been working on the lycanthropy assignment for five years (supposedly since age 21). In Chapter 1, his age is given as 57 and he states that he has been working on it for 30 years. Since age 27? Or maybe he really meant "30-some-odd years", more precisely 36. At any rate, he seems to have developed the Wolfsbane Potion in about 1989-1990, a few years before Remus Lupin's tenure as a Hogwarts professor in 1993.