Were these moral means applicable to the case of Thomas Roch?
One may be permitted to doubt it, even amid the tranquil and salubrious surroundings of Healthful House.

As a matter of fact the very symptoms of uneasiness, changes of temper, irritability, queer traits of character, melancholy, apathy, and a repugnance for serious occupations were distinctly apparent; no treatment seemed capable of curing or even alleviating these symptoms.

This was patent to all his medical attendants.
It has been justly remarked that madness is an excess of subjectivity; that is to say, a state in which the mind accords too much to mental labor and not enough to outward impressions.

In the case of Thomas Roch this indifference was practically absolute.

He lived but within himself, so to speak, a prey to a fixed idea which had brought him to the condition in which we find him.