Skinny On

Lunacy and the Full Moon

Lunacy and the Full Moon
By Hannah Holmes

Do people go crazy on the full moon?

It's an enduring bit of folk wisdom, spurred by modern-day rumors that emergency rooms fill up, oddballs act odder, and dogs howl in the streets when the moon beams. Furthermore, there are lots of perfectly rational people who will assure you they just feel a little restless around the time of the full moon. The very word "lunatic" is built on the Latin word for moon, luna. So, is there proof?


If nothing else, there's proof that scientists take the question with a surprising seriousness.
.
Biologists, psychologists, even a dentist, have taken a crack at correlating full moons with foolishness. The results have been mixed, and mysterious:
  • A 1983 study of calls to a poison center found that unintentional poisoning increases at the full moon; and that suicide attempts and drug abuse increase with the new moon. A 1980 study, though, couldn't link drug overdose to any lunar phase.

  • A 1991 study found that women in a treatment center who were developmentally delayed misbehaved more often on the full moon. But a 1994 study found no full-moon correlation with admissions to a psychiatric hospital, and a 1997 study said doctors see no increase of depressed and anxious patients.

  • A study of a suburban hospital's emergency room concluded the full moon brought no howling hoards.

  • A study of workplace absenteeism actually found more people at work on the full moon.

  • Another inquiry revealed that people ate 8 percent bigger meals and drank 26 percent less alcohol on full-moon days than on new-moon days.

    • Fun stuff, though not exactly a series of smoking guns.
    .
    One man, a dentist at the University of Pittsburgh, took this whole business seriously enough to examine the cosmological underpinnings of the whole debate: What possible excuse would a full moon have for working mental mischief?

    To understand what a full moon actually is, draw a small circle on a piece of paper, and put Africa in it so you'll know it's the Earth. Draw another circle (the moon's 29.5-day orbit) around the Earth, and make a bead on each compass point. Off to the right, draw a beaming sun. Blacken the left half of each moon-bead and leave the halves facing the sun white. Your right bead is the new moon, its dark back to us. Your left bead is the full moon, its entire, sunny face visible. The upper and lower beads are hatchet-lit half-moons.

    Frankly, the full moon's most obvious feature doesn't look very incriminating: An extra bit of reflected sunlight is making us cuckoo? Next theory, please.

    Both the moon and Sun have a gravitational effect on the Earth. When they're both on our right (new moon), their combined forces tug up big ocean tides; when we come between them (full moon), they pull opposite each other.

    So if it's a gravitational alteration that's making us nuts, we should be looking at the new moon as well as the full moon, says Dr. Daniel Myers, the dentist who has studied the effects of gravity on migraine headaches.


    Or, alternatively, we shouldn't be looking at it at all.
    .
    "I'm not saying there's no full-moon effect," he says. "It's just not caused by gravity."

    What else could it be? I found no study that looked closely at moonlight, its potential for disrupting sleep, or its facilitation of night-time misbehavior. It might be interesting to compare cloud-covered full moons to clear full moons, with respect to one loony behavior.

    And speaking of loony, when the word first appeared in the language, it was used interchangeably with "luny." This suggests that the word evolved from the older word, "lunacy" and the moon, rather than from "loon," the name of the spotted bird with the demented voice.


    Vocabulary
    protective, adj. A British study of hospital admissions for self-poisoning found that women make up 60 percent of patients at the new moon; but only 45 percent on the full moon. Hence, the study concludes, "the full moon is protective for women."


    Check out more of "The Skinny On ..." stories:

  • Traffic Jam "Ghosts"
  • Why Asparagus Makes Your Pee Stink
  • Why We Can't Tell What Time It Is
  • Why We Fear Nuclear Power, Not Peanut Butter
  • Tongue Rolling
  • Itty Bitty Life Forms
  • Sewing Up Baseballs
  • Strange Sneezing Situations
  • The Evil Eye
  • Why Ice Cubes Shrink in the Freezer
  • Why Toilet Bowl Water Twirls Clockwise
  • Why Teflon Sticks to the Pan


    		•
    Hannah Holmes keeps her eye on the moon from Portland, Maine. In addition to her numerous contributions to Discovery Online, she writes for Escape, Outside, Sierra, Backpacker, Eco Traveler and Women's Sports and Fitness. Write her at skinny@online.discovery.com.


    S K I N N Y  O N
    Main
    WebLinks



    Picture: Brian Frick |
    Copyright © 1997 Discovery Communications, Inc.