550 



MOxXTlILY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE, 



It is remarkable that this proverb is current in 

 places where the red moon is not noticed. 



Supposed Lunar Injlnence on Putrefaction. 

 — Pliny and Plutarch have transmitted it as a 

 maxim, that the light of the moon facilitates the 

 putrefaction of animal substances, and covers 

 them with moisture. The same opinion prevails 

 in the West Indies, and in South America. An 

 impression is prevalent, also, that certain kinds 

 of fruit exposed to iiioonlight lose their flavor 

 and become soft and flabby ; and that if a wound- 

 ed mule be exposed to the light of the moon dur- 

 ing the night, the wound will become in'itated, 

 and frequently become incurable. 



Such effects, if real, may be explained upon 

 tlie same principles as those by which we have 

 already explained the effects imputed to the red 

 moon. Animal substances exposed to a clear sky 

 at night, are liable to receive a deposition of 

 dew, which hamiditj- has a tendency to accel- 

 erate putrefaction. But this effect will be pro- 

 duced if the sky be clear, whether the moon be 

 above the horizon or not. The moon, therefore, 

 ill this case, is a witness and not an agent ; and 

 we must acquit her of the misdeeds imputed to 

 her. 



Supposed Lunar Influence on SheUfsh. — It 

 in a very ancient remark, that oysters and other 

 shell-fish become larger during the increase 

 than during the decline of the moon. This max- 

 im is mentioned by the poet Lucilius, by Aulus 

 Gellius and others ; and the members of the 

 Academy del Cimento appear to have tacitly ad- 

 mitted it, since they endeavor to give an expla- 

 nation of it. The fact, however, has been care- 

 fully examined by Rohault, who has compared 

 sliell-fish taken at all periods of the lunar month, 

 and found that they exhibit no difference of 

 quality. 



Supposed Lunar Influence on the Marrow 

 of Animals. — An opinion is prevalent among 

 butchers that the marrow found in the bones of 

 animals varies in quantity according to the pha.se 

 of the moon in which they are slaughtered. This 

 question has also been examined bj' Rohault, 

 who made a series of observations which were 

 continued for twenty years with aview to testit; 

 and the result was that it was proved completely 

 destitute of foundation. 



Supposed Lunar Influence on the Weight 

 of the Human Body. — Sanctorius, who.se name 

 is celebrated in jthysics for the invention of the 

 thei-mometer. held it as a principle that a healthy 

 man gained two pounds weight at the beginning 

 of every lunar month, which he lost toward its 

 completion. This opinion appears to be found- 

 ed on experiments made upon him.self ; and af- 

 fords another instance of a fortuitous coincidence 

 hastily generalized. The eiTor would have been 

 corrected if he had continued his observations a 

 sufficient length of time. 



Suj^posed Lunar Influence on Births. — It is 

 a prevalent opinion that births occur more fre- 

 quently in the decline of the moon than in lier 

 increase. This opinion has been tested by com- 

 paring the number of births with the periods of 

 the lunar phases ; but the attention directed to 

 statistics as well in this country as abroad, will 

 aoon lead to the decision of this question.* 



Supposed Lunar Influence on Incubation. — 

 It is a maxim handed down by Pliny, that eggs 

 should be put to cover when the moon is new. 



* Other sexual phenomena, such as the period of 

 gestation, vulgarly supposed to have some relation 

 to the lunar month, huve no relation whatever to that 

 period. 



In France it is a maxim generally adopted, that 

 the fowls are better and more successfully rear- 

 ed when they break the shell at the full of the 

 moon. The experiments and observations of 

 M. Girou de Buzareiugues have given counte- 

 nance to this opinion. But .such observations 

 require to be multiplied before the maxim can 

 be considered as established. M. Girou inclines 

 to the opinion that daring the dark nights about 

 new moon the hens sit so undisturbed that they 

 either kill their young or check their develop- 

 ment by too much heat ; while in moonlight 

 nights, being more restless, this effect is not pro- 

 duced. 



Supposed Lunar Influence on Mental de- 

 rangement and other Human Maladies. — The 

 influence on the phenomena of human maladies 

 imputed to the moon is very ancient. Hippo- 

 crates had so strong a faith in the influence of 

 celestial objects on animated beings, that he ex- 

 pressly recommends no physician to be trusted 

 ^vho is ignorant of astronomy. Galen, following 

 Hippocrates, maintained the same opinion, espe- 

 cially of the influence of the moon. Hence in dis- 

 eases the lunar periods were said to correspond 

 with the succession of the sufl'erings of the pa- 

 tients. The critical days or crises (as they were af- 

 erward called), were the seventh, fourteenth, and 

 twenty-first of the disease, corresponding to the 

 intervals between the moon's principal phases. 

 While the doctrine of alchemists prevailed, the 

 human body was considered as a microcosm ; 

 the heart representing the sun, the brain the 

 moon. The planets had each its proper in- 

 fluence : Jupiter presided over the lungs, Mars 

 over the liver, Saturn over the spleen, Venus 

 over the kidneys, and Mercury over the organs 

 of generation. Of these grotesque notions there 

 is now no relic, except the term lunacy, which 

 still designates unsoundness of mind. But even 

 this term may be in some degree be said to be 

 banished fi'om the terminology of medicine, and 

 it has taken refuge in that receptacle of all anti- 

 quated absurdities of phra.seolog3- — the law. Lu- 

 natic, we believe, is still the term for the subject 

 who is incapable of managing his own affairs. 



Although the ancient faith in the connection 

 between the phases of the moon and the phe- 

 nomena of in.sanity appears in a great degree to 

 be abandoned, yet it is not altogether without its 

 votaries ; nor have we been able to ascertain 

 that any series of observations conducted ou 

 scientific principles, has ever been made on the 

 phenomena of insanity, with a view to disjjrove 

 this coimection. W^e have even met with intel- 

 ligent and well-educated physicians who still 

 maintain that the paroxysms of insane patients 

 arc more violent when the moon is full than at 

 other limes. 



Mathiolus Faber gives an instance of a ma- 

 niac who at the very moment of an eclipse of 

 the moon, became furious, seized upon a sword, 

 and fell upon everyone around him. Ramazzini 

 relates that, in the epidemic fever which spread 

 over Italy in the year 1693, patients died in an 

 unusual number on the 21st of January, at the 

 moment of a lunar eclipse. 



Without disputing this fact (to ascertain which 

 however, it would be necessary to have statistical 

 returns of the daily death.s), it may be objected 

 that the patients who thus died in such numbers 

 at the moment of the eclipse, might have had 

 their imaginations highly e.xcited, and their fears 

 wrought upon by the approach of that event, if 

 popular opinion invested it with danger. That 

 such au impression was not unlikely to prevail 



