VICTORIA MOORE
UK Daily Mail
Thursday, January 25, 2007

The poet Robert Graves was so in thrall to the mystical power of the Moon that he would sometimes be an embarrassment to his children.

"Once," according to his daughter, "we went to an evening fun fair. Dad noticed the Moon and, being superstitious, he bowed to it nine times, very slowly, oblivious to the people watching him. My brother and I walked on, pretending we had no idea who this strange man was."

To Graves, the Moon's ability to affect human lives was beyond dispute. He maintained that the matriarchal deity - which he named the "White Goddess" - contained a divine source of energy. This energy, he believed, was the sole source of inspiration for his love poems.

Modern scientists may not go so far as to join Graves in his genuflections, but some are coming round to his way of thinking. An increasingly vocal contingent believe the Moon influences the way we think and act just as decisively as it sucks and spits the Earth's oceans into tides.

In a new scientific paper, The Lunar Cycle: Effects On Human And Animal Behaviour And Physiology, Professor Michal Zimecki of the Polish Academy of Sciences has analysed dozens of studies that take lunar activity into account, and argues that a full moon could affect criminal activity and our health, causing an escalation in crime and admissions to hospital to surge.

We're not safe when it's a new moon, either: apparently, suicide rates go up when the Moon is a mere sliver in the sky. Zimecki also says there seems to be a close relationship between the female body and lunar cycles, as fertility appears to be affected.

Are his ideas lunacy? You may well ask. The word "lunatic" actually means, as the first four letters suggest, "affected with the kind of insanity that was supposed to have recurring periods, depending on changes of the Moon," according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

And, in the 1600s, Chief Justice Sir William Hale was explicit about the connection between the Moon and a person's mental state. He said: "The Moon has great influence on all diseases of the brain, especially dementia."

Our ancestors did not merely believe a full moon could bring on madness. They also associated it with phenomena such as lycanthropy - the witchcraft by which a man becomes a werewolf - and the spine-chilling spectre of hounds baying at the night sky.

Now Zinecki says the effects of the Moon are so marked it "may be helpful in police surveillance and medical practice". Indeed, some psychiatric hospitals increase security at certain periods in the lunar cycle.

"It is generally accepted among mental health carers that patients with psychotic disorders present more extreme symptoms at the time of a full moon," says one healthcare professional.

One of the most infamous modern-day "lunatics" is Christopher Gore, a brilliant maths student who, one night in the early Nineties when a full moon hung over the Gloucestershire countryside, took an axe and murdered his parents.

He was later questioned over two other murders, both of which had also occurred during a full moon, and given an indefinite sentence in Broadmoor.

It's hard to tell whether people simply respond emotionally to the illumination and potent symbolism suggested by a full moon, or if there might be a deeper link between them.

Either way, it's not just those with pre-existing mental health problems who appear to be affected.

One three-month study on 1,200 prisoners in the maximum security wing of Armley Jail in West Yorkshire found that there was an unequivocal rise in violence during the days on either side of a full moon. A further study in Florida found significant clusters of violent incidents around the full moon.

And in other research, involving the incidence of crimes reported to three police stations over a four-year period, the number of crimes was higher on full moon days than at any other point in the lunar cycle.

The conclusion was that these spikes could be the result of "human tidal waves" caused by the gravitational pull of the Moon, though cynical detectives might argue that villains can simply see what they're doing much better when the Moon is lighting up the sky.

Matters get particularly interesting when you consider the link between our physical health and the Moon, with increases in bladder problems, asthma attacks and gout both coinciding with particular points in the lunar cycle.

The moon takes 28 days to orbit the earth, but the gap between two full moons (the synodic month) is slightly longer - at 29.53 days. This is because the way we see the moon depends on its position relative to the Sun and the Earth, and as the Earth is also moving round the Sun, it takes a bit more time for all three bodies to line up again.

At 29.5 days, the average woman's menstrual cycle is the same length as the interval between two moon phases.

Research on data from 140,000 live births in New York City discovered another correlation - recurring patterns in birth rates over a period of 29.53 days. This showed a rise in births at the time of the full moon.

Analysis has also suggested a woman's ovulation is linked to the lunar cycle, and is more likely to occur during "the period of decreasing illumination immediately after the full moon".

Humans are also, apparently, more likely to be or to feel physically ill during full moon periods. Research by Leeds University found that the number of requests for GP consultations rose by 3.6 per cent when the moon was full.

A similar study, carried out by Bournemouth doctors who were curious about the inexplicable peaks and troughs in call-out requests from their patients, had near-identical results, finding that emergency calls rose by 3 per cent during a full moon.

Our appetite may be affected, too: we eat 8 per cent more and drink as much as 25 per cent more alcohol on the day of the full moon than on the day of the new moon, according to scientists at Georgia State University.

But for all the studies that claim to have found a link between the lunar cycle and human behaviour, no one has come close to being able to explain it.

Some believe that as we are mostly made of water, the lunar gravity pulls us in the same way as it does the sea.

Others are more specific, and talk of "the Moon's gravitational pull affecting intracellular fluid in a part of the hypothalamus" - a part of the brain.

Michael Zimecki is circumspect - "the exact mechanism of the Moon's influence on humans and animals awaits further exploration".

For those who are still sceptical, this may not be as daft as it sounds. For centuries, farmers have been so convinced that the waxing and waning of the Moon has a bearing on their crops that they have followed what's known as a biodynamic system of agriculture, working according to the position of the Moon and the planets.

It's a method that, even in our age of chemical fertilisers and mechanisation, has seen many converts over the past few years.

So if the Moon can change the way a plant grows, why should we be immune?

Incidentally, in case you were wondering - the next full moon is on February 2...

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