Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 20:65–73, 2011

Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 0964-704X print / 1744-5213 online
DOI: 10.1080/0964704X.2010.481101

The Disease of the Moon: The Linguistic

and Pathological Evolution of the English
Term “Lunatic”

M.A. RIVA,1,2 L. TREMOLIZZO,3 M. SPICCI,4

C. FERRARESE,3 G. DE VITO,2 G.C. CESANA,2 AND
V.A. SIRONI1
1
Research Centre on the History of Biomedical Thought, University of Milano
Bicocca, Monza, Italy
2
Research Centre on Public Health, Department of Clinical and Preventive
Medicine, University of Milano Bicocca, Monza, Italy
3
Neurology Section, Department of Neurosciences and Biomedical Technologies,
University of Milano Bicocca, Monza, Italy
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4
Department of English Studies, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

The public opinion and the scientific community incorrectly believe that the English
term “lunatic” was originally related only to insanity, but it also referred to epilep-
tic people. The aim of this article is to clarify the original meaning of the English word
“lunatic” by analyzing the evolution of the relationship between psychiatric and neuro-
logical diseases and by pointing out the influence of the moon in the history of medicine,
in popular traditions, and in English literature. The article also contains a detailed and
accurate review of the modern scientific literature on the relationship between moon
and epilepsy/psychiatric disorders.

Keywords medical terms, lunatic, epileptic, insane, sleepwalker, moon

Introduction
The term “lunatic,” originating from the Latin “Lunaticus,” itself coming from “Lūna”
(“moon”), defines a person “affected by the kind of insanity that was supposed to have
recurring periods dependent on the changes of the moon” (Oxford English Dictionary,
2009). The term seems to have made its first appearance in the English language at the end
of the fourteenth century, when it already had a clear pathological meaning (in his transla-
tion of Bartholomeus de Glanvilla’s proto-encyclopetic work entitled “De Proprietatibus
Rerum”-1398, John of Trevisa writes that the “precious stone Topazius [. . .] helpith
ayenst the passion Lunatyk”) (John of Trevisa, 1495). In its later accepted meaning of
“crazy,” “foolish,” “idiotic,” and “mad,” the term “lunatic” was widely employed in the
Elizabethan age, as shown by the huge quantity of its occurrences in many plays by William
Shakespeare and other contemporary dramatists and authors.

Address correspondence to M.A. Riva, Research Centre on the History of Biomedical Thought
(Centro Studi sulla Storia del Pensiero Biomedico, CESPEB), University of Milano Bicocca, Villa
Serena, via Pergolesi 33, I-20090 Monza, Italy. Tel.: +39 (039) 2333098; Fax: +39 (039) 365378.
E-mail: michele.riva@unimib.it

65
 66 M.A. Riva et al.

It has been stated (Raison, Klein, & Steckler, 1999; Reaume, 2002) that most people —
incorrectly — believe that in ancient times, this term was originally related only to insanity.
The aim of this work is to clarify the original meaning of the English word “lunatic” by
analyzing the evolution of the relationship between psychiatric and neurological diseases
and by pointing out the influence of the moon in the history of medicine and in popular
traditions.

The Origins
The late-Latin term “lunaticus,” whence the English “lunatic” is derived or originates from
the term “luna,” which indicates the moon, both in the astronomic/astrological meaning
and in the mythological one. Indeed, Luna is also the name of a goddess, the divine person-
ification of Earth’s satellite: the importance of this divinity in Roman Pantheon is shown by
the temple consecrated to her on the Aventine Hill (Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, XL 2.2)
and destroyed in Nero’s great fire (Tacitus, Annales XV 41).
The original meaning of the term “lunaticus” is not related only to insanity. In partic-
ular, its first use is documented in the Vulgate, the fifth-century Latin version of the Bible,
translated from the Ancient Greek by Jerome (347–420) on commission of Pope Damasus.
In the Gospel of Matthew (17: 15–18), a father asks Jesus to cure his son because he
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is “lunaticus” (“Domine, misere filio meo, quia lunaticus est, et male patitur: nam saepe
cadit in ignem et crebro in aquam. [. . .] Et increpavit illum Jesus et exit ab eo daemo-
nium et curatus est puer ex illa hora”). This episode is translated in the Bible of King
James (1611) as follows: “Lord, have mercy on my son: for he is lunatick, and sore vexed;
for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water [. . .] And Jesus rebuked the
devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.” When
this passage is compared with the other synoptic gospels (Luke 9: 37–43; Mark 9: 17–29),
the most accurate description of the same episode leads us to understand that the boy is
affected by epilepsy. The term “lunaticus est” is the Latin translation of the Greek verb
“σ εληνιάζ ετ αι” (“seleniazetai”), which includes the prefix selen- (from σ ελήνη — the
ancient Greek word for the moon). Therefore, the original meaning of the term “lunatic”
seems to be linked to epilepsy, rather than insanity. According to Stahl, Temkin wrote on
this issue that “the term lunatic was [. . .] no mere synonym for epileptic, but comprised all
such abnormal states as manifested themselves in more or less regular periodical attacks”
(Temkin, 1979). If Temkin’s statement is undoubtedly true when the classical period is
taken into account as a whole, it could be partially challenged if the original meaning of
the term is analyzed. Indeed, since its first use in the Gospel of Matthew and in the fol-
lowing three centuries, the Greek translation of the term “lunatic” seems to be employed
only to describe epileptics. In particular, the Greek term “σ εληνιασ µóς ” is used as a syn-
onym of epilepsy by the Hellenistic astrologer Vettius Valens (120–175) as well as by the
Byzantine physician Alexander of Tralles (or Alexander Trallianus, 525–605) (Economou
& Lascaratos, 2005). Nowadays, the same word indicates epilepsy also in Modern Greek.
Also Aelian (Claudius Aelianus), a Roman philosopher who lived in the third century
under the Emperor Septimius Severus, in his Greek work “On the Nature of Animals”
(14, 27) defined epilepsy as “`ὴ έκ τ ης σ ελήνης νóσ oς ” (the disease caused by the
moon) (Hercher, 1864). This original link of the term with epilepsy is attested also in
Latin literature, as shown by the Spanish bishop Isidore of Seville (560–636). In the
fourth book, regarding medicine (“De Medicina”), of his most important work entitled
the “Etymologiarum libri sive Origines,” Isidore describes the original meaning of several
medical terms and illustrates some chronic diseases; while describing epilepsy in detail, he
 The Origin of the English Term “Lunatic” 67

writes: “Hos etiam vulgus lunaticos vocant, quod per lunae cursum comitetur eos insidia
daemonum” (“Commonly, people call them [epileptics] lunatici, because the snares of dev-
ils accompany them through the course of the moon, luna”) (Valastro Canale, 2004, p. 343).
However, a widespread meaning of the Greek and Latin translations for “lunatic,”
more linked to psychiatric diseases, seems to appear only during the fourth and fifth
centuries in the works of astrological authors, such as Julius Firmicius Maternus and
Pseudo-Manetho (Temkin, 1979). This change of the meaning, which includes both
epilepsy and psychiatric diseases, is attested in the early medieval glosses where some
people affected by pathological forms of divine possession were called “lunatics” (isti
sunt, quos lunaticos alii vocant, inmissione vel iracundia deorum est) (Temkin, 1979).
This is enough to show that the original meaning of the Latin term “lunaticus”
was mainly related to epilepsy until the fourth century when it began to include other
neurological and psychiatric diseases.

Moon and Epilepsy

The etiological mechanism that connected epilepsy with the moon is originally suggested
in the first century by the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who thought that “the full
moon caused the brain to become unnaturally moist, leading to both madness and epileptic
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attacks” (Iosif & Ballon, 2005, p. 1499). In the same century, Aretaeus of Cappadocia,
a Greek physician who practiced in Rome under the Flavian dynasty, related epileptic
attacks to the cycle of the moon (“circa magnas lunae mutationes”) (Iannaccone, 2000);
he also reported that “it [epilepsy] is supposed, that it is an infliction on persons who have
sinned against the Moon” (Puccinotti, 1843, p. 27). The relationship between the moon
and epilepsy in the work of Aretaeus and in Pliny confirms the spread of this theory in the
first century, exactly when the Gospel of Matthew was written. Probably this belief derives
from Oriental cultures, having its foundations in Babylonian medicine and in Hebraic tradi-
tions, where seizures were mainly associated with supernatural and demoniac possessions
(Daras, Papakostas, & Tuchman, 1994), but also with astral influence. Indeed Assyrians
and Babylonians had studied the movements of astral bodies with great interest, developing
an accurate system of knowledge that was applied to astrological divinations (Fiorendola
& Parenti, 1987). In Mesopotamia epilepsy was originally related to the moon: people
afflicted by seizures were forbidden to consume the meat of goats, which were sacred
to the moon (Iannaccone, 2000). The relationship between epileptics and the moon was
confirmed in the Hellenistic world by the astrologer Vettius Valens of Antioch, contem-
porary of Claudius Ptolemy. In his “Anthology,” considered as the longest and the most
detailed treatise on astrology of the classic age, he wrote: “If they [the planets Mars and
Saturn] should scrutinize while the Moon is putting an end to a certain phase, they produce
maniacs, ecstatics, epileptics, those who chant” (Anthology, II, 37) (Schmidt, 1994).
The fusion of Oriental astrological beliefs and Hippocratic humouralism, which
explained epilepsy as an increase of phlegm in the head (“The Sacred Disease”) (Daras
et al., 1994) occurred in the next centuries. Oribasius of Pergamum (fourth century), pri-
vate physician of the Emperor Julian the Apostate, in his texts (“Synagogae Medicae”
and “Synopsis ad Eustathium”) described epilepsy as the result of an excess of phlegm
in the brain, compressing the nerves and preventing the flow of psychic “pneuma” from
coming out of the head. He believed the moon could cause this excess by enacting a mech-
anism that resembled the phenomenon of tides (Economou & Lascaratos, 2005). Although
it has a manifestly unscientific content, his explanation must be considered both as an
attack against the prevailing view (that of divine or demoniac possession; Reynolds &
 68 M.A. Riva et al.

Trimble, 2009) and as an attempt for rationalizing the disease by relating it to natural
causes (magnetic forces of the moon). Thus, according to Temkin, these explanations could
be considered as “an astro-physical rather than astrological theory and not dependent on
magic or theological assumptions” (Temkin, 1979, p. 95).
Considering what we have been discussing so far, it is not surprising that the influ-
ence of the moon phases has been repeatedly explored in the field of epilepsy also in the
contemporary age. In 2004, for example, Benbadis and colleagues demonstrated that the
number of seizures in patients with epilepsy was lowest during the full moon and highest in
the last quarter, although psychogenic nonepileptic seizures (PNES) presented an opposite
pattern (Benbadis et al., 2004). A later study on 859 patients, on the other hand, found a
conflicting result, since seizures clustered around the full moon period (Polychronopoulos
et al., 2006). However, a recent study, performed in the United Kingdom on 1571 seizures
recorded in a dedicated epilepsy inpatient unit, found an initial significant negative correla-
tion between the mean number of seizures and the fraction of the moon illuminated by the
sun; a correlation that disappeared following correction for local clarity of the night sky,
suggesting that it may be the brightness of the night and the contribution that the moon
phase makes to nocturnal luminance, rather than the moon phase per se to influence the
occurrence of seizures (Baxendale & Fisher, 2008). The same authors also report an asso-
ciation between nonepileptic seizures and a full moon. An influence of the moon cycle has
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been assessed also on status epilepticus and sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP).
In fact, Ruegg and colleagues find, among other factors, a significant association between
the incidence of status epilepticus and the moon cycle, reporting the most significant peak
3–4 days after the new moon (Rüegg et al., 2008). Interestingly, SUDEP is also appar-
ently influenced by the moon, peaking during full moon periods (Terra-Bustamante et al.,
2009). Collectively, these results appear conflictive and these discrepancies suggest that
the presence of a putative association between moon phases and true seizures might be an
inconsistent phenomenon related to chance and/or bias. Possibly more studies are required
in order to settle this question. On the other hand, it appears that nonepileptic seizures
might be related to full moon period, interestingly strengthening the clinical correlates of
the modern meaning of the term “lunatic.”

Moon and Madness

In Pliny the Elder and in Vettius Valens, the etiological role of the moon on epileptics is
clearly explained and described in the same passages by both authors, together with its
influence on insane people, named “maniacs” (from µανία, madness). Moreover, the the-
ory proposed by Oribasius explains madness, also called µελαγ χ oλία (from the Greek
µέλας , black and χ oλία, bile; Ferrio, 1931) with the same mechanism, according to
which the humor in excess in the brain caused by the moon becomes black bile instead
of phlegm (Lutzenkirchen et al., 1981).
The link between the moon and insanity could be observed also in Hellenistic nonmed-
ical textbooks. In the “Dionysiaca,” an epic tale by Nonnus of Panopolis (fifth century), the
goddess Selene (the Moon) describes herself as “I am the Bakkhic Mene [Moon], not alone
because in heaven I turn the months, but because I command madness and excite lunacy”
(Dionysiaca 44. 227–229) and, on request of Bacchus, she maddens his enemy, Pnetheus
(Demartin du Tyrac Marcellus, 1856).
In the second century, Origen, one of the early fathers of the Church, attributed the
causes of both madness and the divine possessions to the influence of the moon (Temkin,
1979). Origen, in his “Commentary on Matthew”, refers to the above mentioned passage
 The Origin of the English Term “Lunatic” 69

from the Gospel: in contrast with the naturalistic explanations of the physicians, he claimed
that lunacy had a demonic origin (“an unclean dumb and deaf spirit”). He also suggested
that “the spirit observed changes of the moon and acted accordingly, so that man might
not put blame upon the demon but upon the moon, which was God’s creation and had
no power over this disease” (Temkin, 1979). This theory was largely accepted by medi-
cal and nonmedical authorities: the strength of Origen’s authority and the fact that epilepsy
and insanity had analogous manifestations as well as similar etiological interpretations
(i.e., demoniac possession; Iannaccone, 2000) contributed to create the medieval idea that
“insanity” and “epilepsy” could be easily defined with the same term.
Moreover astrological medicine became very common in this period, due to Arabic
and Latin translations of Greek textbooks on this subject (Grmek, 2007). The Moon, a
nocturnal and mysterious entity opposed to the Sun, was connected to the occult and
evil forces of the demonic world. For this reason, people afflicted with madness, con-
sidered as an expression of a demonic possession, began to be named as “lunatics.”
In Renaissance medicine, Paracelsus (Philippus Theophrastus Aureolus Bombastus von
Hohenheim, 1493–1541) made use of this word to designate foolish people, as shown in
his treatise “Liber de lunaticis Theophrasti,” based on the view of a human microcosm
strongly influenced by astral-sidereal macrocosm (Korschunow, 1998).
Between the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries, when the term “lunatic” became
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widespread in English, the etiological role of the moon in mental disorders was commonly
accepted in the scientific as well as in the literary fields. This is clear, for instance, in
Shakespeare’s Othello, where Othello himself affirms: “It is the very error of the moon; /
She comes more nearer earth than she was wont, / And makes men mad” (Shakespeare,
2001, V.2.110–112). Following Othello’s suggestion, many of Shakespeare’s characters
attribute the perturbing power of causing mental diseases to the moon. This is the case,
among others, of Evans, who cries: “Why, this is lunatics. This is mad as a mad dog!”
(The Merry Wives of Windsor; Shakespeare, 2000, IV.2.118). Similarly, Baptista wonders:
“What is the man lunatic?” (The Taming of the Shrew; Shakespeare, 2007, V.1.65). The
moon is also obsessively present throughout A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play in which
the perturbations caused by the moon are said to affect three different categories of “fool-
ish” individuals (“The lunatic, the lover and the poet / Are of imagination all compact. /
One sees more devils than the vast hell can hold: / That is the madman”; Shakespeare,
1998, V.1.7–10).
Also, Italian Renaissance literature mirrors this tradition. In the epic poem by
Ludovico Ariosto, “Orlando Furioso” (1532/1992), when the paladin Orlando learns that
his lover Angelica is married, he becomes mad and goes through Europe and Africa
destroying everything in his path. The English knight Astolfo flies up to moon where all
human intellects lost on Earth are collected and finds Orlando’s in a bottle, thus restoring
him to sanity (Ariosto, 1532/1992).
In the seventeenth century, the term “lunatic,” especially in its more specific accep-
tation of “insane” as a result of some mental obsession, began to be substituted by the
term “moonstruck.” Reflecting the popular association between the moon and the irra-
tional, primitive, and dark side of the human mind, the adjective “moonstruck” makes
its first appearance in John Milton’s Paradise Lost: “And Moon-struck madness, pining
Astrophie” (Milton, 1674/1868, XI.486).
In this period, the “lunar hypothesis” reappeared in the debate on the etiological mech-
anism of epilepsy, encouraged by the studies on universal gravitation conducted by Sir
Isaac Newton (1643–1727), who was the first to provide a correct explanation for tidal
phenomenon and the role of the moon (Iannaccone, 2000). On the base of this hypothesis,
 70 M.A. Riva et al.

the change of moon could trigger the seizure or maniacal episodes in susceptible peo-
ple. These ideas, seemingly supported by scientific theories (Newton’s Law of Universal
Gravitation), remained for a long time in medical and popular opinion, as claimed by an
1843 article of The Lancet (Raison et al., 1999) and by the analysis of the votive offer-
ings (ex-votos) where painted epileptic seizures, triggered by “evil spirits,” occur outdoors
during the full moon (Sironi, 1989).
In the Romantic Age, the metaphysical theories of the Baron Karl Ludwig von
Reichenbach (1788–1869), a member of the Prussian Academy of Sciences, related som-
nambulism to the appearance of specific lunar phases and explained this “lunar attraction”
as a manifestation of a more fundamental natural force, a vital principle named “Odic
force” (Reichenbach, 1850). Nowadays, in German and in some languages of Eastern
Europe, sleepwalkers are still called either lunatics (Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian) or
by using terms that are directly related to the moon (Table 1; Riva et al., 2010).
Even if the relationship between the moon and epileptic attacks was recognized and
the correlation between the Earth’s satellite and sleepwalking was postulated, the English
term was used only to indicate insane people. In the past, several eminent authors, such as
Vincenzo Chiarugi (1759–1820), supported the etiological connection between the moon
and psychiatric attacks (Lombroso, 1868, 1878). Thus, the use of the term “lunatic” was
socially and medically accepted also in the second half of the nineteenth century. In North
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America, the term “Lunatic Asylum” came to be used and was widely accepted until 1870s,
when such buildings were renamed “Insane Asylums” (Reaume, 2002). In British legisla-
tion, the term Lunacy was used to designate numerous Acts on mental health, approved
by the Parliament (Lunacy Act) from 1821 to 1922. Only the “Mental Treatment Act
1930” changed the legal term to “person of unsound mind,” later replaced by “men-
tal illness” under the “Mental Health Act 1959.” Since that period, the term “lunatic”
has been considered politically as well as scientifically incorrect in all English-speaking
countries.
However, the change in political and legal language occurred later than in the scien-
tific one. In the second half of the nineteenth century, according to new Positivist ideas,
several scientists and physicians (such as Leuret, Eccleston, Pain-Hill, Delasiauve, and
Berthier) began to challenge contemporary theories that linked madness (and epilepsy)

Table 1
Translation of the Terms “Sleepwalker” and “Moon” in German and in Different
Eastern European Languages

Languages “Sleepwalker” “Moon”

Croatian Mjesečar Mjesec
Czech Náměsíčník Měsíc
German Mondsüchtig Mond
Latvian Mēnessērdzı̄gais Mēness
Lithuanian Lunatikas Mėnulis
Polish Lunatyk Ksi˛eżyc
Russian Lunatikˆ Luna∗
Serbian Meseqar Mesec
Slovak Náměsíčník Měsiac
ˆRead “lunatic.” ∗ Read “luna.”
 The Origin of the English Term “Lunatic” 71

to the lunar phases (Lombroso, 1868, 1878). The opposition to this belief was made
stronger by the use of new scientific discoveries and tools such as epidemiological observa-
tions and statistical analysis. The analysis conducted by the Italian anthropologist Cesare
Lombroso (1835–1909) on patients of the mental illness ward in Santa Eufemia hospi-
tal in Pavia could provide evidence of the modern theories on the genesis of maniacal
attacks. Indeed, in 1867 Lombroso, while examining the trend of epileptic and “mono-
maniacal” attacks during lunar phases, came to the conclusion that, even if it was true
that the number of attacks in waning crescent moon was higher, such manifestations were
more likely to be caused by the lowering of barometric pressure, which eminent physics
(e.g., Schiaparelli) linked to lunar phases (Lombroso, 1868, 1878). As it had happened
in Hippocratic medicine, madness and epilepsy were again, though incorrectly, linked to
natural phenomena such as barometric changes.
And now how does the “lunatic” theory sound in modern medicine? A careful review
of the available literature on the influx of the moon on the presentation of psychiatric
disorders has been published a few years ago (Iosif & Ballon, 2005) concluding that,
although mental health professionals might persist in believing that the full moon alters
individual behavior, scientific data are not available to accept it as a true hypothesis. As
a matter of fact, the influx of the moon has been analyzed throughout modern literature
with respect to different psychiatric disorders and presentations, such as psychiatric admis-
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sion or emergency evaluations (Byrnes & Kelly, 1992; Gorvin & Roberts, 1994; McLay,
Daylo, & Hammer, 2006), community-based consultations for anxiety and depression, or
mixed disorders (Amaddeo et al., 1997; Wilkinson et al., 1997), suicides or violent behav-
iors (Biermann et al., 2005; Owen et al., 1998; Voracek et al., 2008), among others. The
conclusions of all of these studies and reviews are consistently negative and the interesting
question might be redirected on understanding why psychiatrists consistently believe that
the moon does influence their patients. In the modern age, full-moon nights and sleep depri-
vation have been repeatedly claimed to alter psychoendocrine rhythms possibly leading to
psychiatric breaks; although this hypothesis appears to disagree with the more rigorously
collected epidemiological evidence (Raison et al., 1999). One may conclude that psychi-
atrists still pay a tribute to more ancient approaches and beliefs regarding this topic. As
already elegantly pointed out, this might be a really interesting question to keep in mind
when one ends up on call and the moon is full (McLay et al., 2006).

Conclusion
This study shows, through the analysis of past medical literature, the real meaning of the
English term “lunatic.” In contrast with what is commonly thought, the word “lunatic” was
originally related mainly to epilepsy and not to insanity. Only in the Middle Ages, under
the influence of nonmedical authors — above all Origen and some astrological writers
of fourth and fifth centuries — the overlay between such pathologies related the term to
madness. This shift demonstrates that since the Middle Ages there has been great confusion
about the clinical features of epileptic attacks and maniacal episodes.
Moreover, the connection between epileptic seizures and the moon in past medical
literature should be considered as an attempt made by classical rational medicine to con-
trast the beliefs and the traditions of divine/demonic possession through some kind of
natural explanation. For this reason, the contribution of Greek and Roman medicine is
much greater than that offered by the astrological medicine of other ancient civilizations.
On the contrary, the relationship between lunacy and the moon was originally influenced
by metaphysical theories, and scientifically confirmed after the formulation of the Law
 72 M.A. Riva et al.

of Universal Gravitation by Newton in the seventeenth century. Nowadays, the meaning

related to madness remains only in English (“lunatic”), in Spanish, in Portuguese, and in
Galician (“lunàtico”), but it is no longer used in medical language; in Italian (“lunatico”),
in French (“lunatique”), and in German (“launenhaft“), it indicates a moody and inconstant
person whose insanity might be related to the monthly changes in shape of the moon.
Finally, our diachronical analysis of scientific literature has not shown any evi-
dence regarding an effect of the moon on the presentation of neuropsychiatric disorders,
prompting us to consider any “lunatic” biological hypothesis (such as melatonin-release
modifications) as the more modern expression of the same old misconception, possibly a
mix of both folklore, literature- and media-perpetuated myths, and cognitive bias.

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