![]() Sir William Herschel, a prominent British astronomer and composer, also thought aliens lived on the moon and made regular observations about the progress of their construction projects. Most of his colleagues scoffed at his assertion, but he eventually got a small lunar crater named after him. He wrote that the “lunarians” who lived there had built sophisticated buildings, roads and forts. In the 1820s, the Bavarian astronomer Franz von Paula Gruithuisen claimed to have glimpsed entire cities on the moon with his telescope. Even today, despite studies discrediting the hypothesis, some people think full moons make everyone a little loony. In 18th-century England, people on trial for murder could campaign for a lighter sentence on grounds of lunacy if the crime occurred under a full moon meanwhile, psychiatric patients at London’s Bethlehem Hospital were shackled and flogged as a preventive measure during certain lunar phases. that “one who is seized with terror, fright and madness during the night is being visited by the goddess of the moon.” ![]() Hippocrates, considered the father of modern medicine, wrote in the fifth century B.C. Indeed, the words “lunacy” and “lunatic” come from the Roman goddess of the moon, Luna, who was said to ride her silver chariot across the dark sky each night.įor thousands of years, doctors and mental health professionals believed in a strong connection between mania and the moon. Since ancient times, full moons have been associated with odd or insane behavior, including sleepwalking, suicide, illegal activity, fits of violence and, of course, transforming into werewolves.
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