Has the World Gone Mad?

Came across the following report while looking at todays news:

news.bbc.co.uk...

This strikes me as strange, given that there are many causes of violent crime that are easier to quantify and easier to police.

I'm sure that the good folks of brighton will sleep easier in their beds - especially at certain times of the month!

My brother was a cop in New Zealand, and I remember him mentioning to me years ago that they would always have extra staff on patrol during a full moon, not sure why but crime would always go up around then. Maybe its because how the moon effects the tides.. humans are mostly water as well and our brain is something like 80% water? who knows..

the oly reason the police never admitted this before is that they do not want to draw attention to it.

Did you never stop and wonder where the word "Lunacy" came from?

Think about it.

The moon affects the tides, menstrual cycles, animal courtship behaviours and several other natural rythmns.

So why shouldn't it affect the human psyche as well?

I believe this up till people turning into wolves.Seriously? Wow. Yep the world has gone mad.

Originally posted by neformore
Did you never stop and wonder where the word "Lunacy" came from?

Think about it.

The moon affects the tides, menstrual cycles, animal courtship behaviours and several other natural rythmns.

So why shouldn't it affect the human psyche as well?

I'm not questioning the effects of the moon - what I am questioning is the fact that you hardly see cops on the beat, yet they can resource extra manpower for something which remains largely unproven in a scientific sense, and yet when you dial emergency you have to wait ages for the cops to come, report a burglary and you'll get someone round in a week if you're lucky!

I used to look after challenging kids and it was always hyper when it was a full moon.

No explanation for it, just seemed wierd thats all.

Maybe it was because there was more moonlight and therefore they had more time to mess us about lol!

CX.

A more telling question is has the world ever been sane?

One day an ancestor of man's fell out of his tree and landed on his head and, the species hasn't been right since.

But hey... what do I know? I'm just a dog! A long as my human takes me for walks, gives me doggie biscuits and scratches my belly I don't care how crazy he is.

[edit on 6-6-2007 by grover]

Talk to anyone that works in a hospital emergency room and they will assure you that peoplpe lose it around a full moon. Many years back I worked in a blood bank for a major hospital. Our surgical service had many procedures that were done several times a day every day. A coworker and I decided to track blood usage by surgery type over the better part of a year. What we found was that for a given procedure, more units of blood would be used right around a full moon then for that same procedure done any other time of the month. We also found that the surgeons would order more blood when scheduling the surgery at those times as well.

This is old,old news. Just about any police station in the world will tell you that people tend to act more aggressive on full moons than on any other nights of the year. Strange? Yes. Undocumented? Nope.

I'm not sure about people acting strangely but I know the dogs tend to bark all night long on a full moon. I used to hate a full moon where I used to live, I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep.

if you heard of a person called texe marrs he always said that major people in society are obsessed with the moon.

he claimed that hillary clinton howls at the moon in rituals.

Well yeah definately.

Full Moon affects people.

I can tell you that i notice a difference when there is a full moon.

I feel more awake, restless, and want to do something. I feel more out-going and feel like i have more of an attitude when there is a full moon.

I absolutely believe it. And my mum definately believes it from working night-shift at a Nursing home for years.

There's something about full moons that affect you.

I find it harder to sleep on a full moon night than other nights. I toss and turn more on those nights.

But....

i'm not a violent person person. And tend to keep my anger bottled up inside ;-P

As Nefermore has commented, the word 'lunacy' illustrates the very old belief in the power of the full moon to affect human (and animal) behaviour.

There's been ongoing debate for decades, with scientists claiming it's all unsubstantiated folk-lore, only for 'new research' to counter-claim that the folk-lore is backed by solid evidence, such as marked increase in births, deaths, strokes, heart-attacks, violent and unusual crime, general unrest, heavy bleeding in surgery patients, etc. etc.

Down in the basement, I have books of 60's and 70's vintage in which authors tend towards one view or the other. Up until approx. the 1930's though, it seems to have been generally accepted that the full moon definitely affects human behaviours. The belief rests on anecdotal evidence, going back dozens of centuries. I tend to favour the latter, if for no other reason than I trust practical people with no agenda but lots of experience, rather than 'scientists' who will swiftly skew their findings to comply with the party-line, in the interests of their personal agenda(tenure, publishing plans, etc).

It's entirely possible that not everyone is affected by the moon, however, in which case it's reasonable that they would dispute the affect of the full moon upon humans. It's possible too, that 'scientists', being 'math orientated' are less emotional and so less prone to the affects of the moon, which would explain their dismissing such beliefs. Those more emotional and 'artistic' on the other hand, may know full well that the phases of the moon definitely affect their emotional and physical balance as well as creative energies, etc., and may wonder why 'scientists' deny same. So I guess it depends upon the make-up of the individual, as to how greatly they are affected/what they believe.

Numerous studies have been conducted to determine the effects of the phases of the moon. For example, some decades ago, crabs were removed from their sea-shore habitat and taken several hundreds of miles inland, to the desert, where they were secreted several dozen feet underground. The study revealed that the crabs' behaviour continued to reflect the phases of the moon, despite their considerable distance from the shoreline, rhythms and rises of the ocean, etc. There have been numerous similar studies.

Older people and those who still follow old beliefs, live their lives according to the phases of the moon, to a degree. For example, 'in tune' gardeners 'plant' according to the moons phases. Europeans believe you should wait until after the full moon before having your hair cut, because the hair grows faster as the moon grows larger. To have the hair cut at teh wrong time would therefore be a waste of money.

Police, those in the medical profession, emergency services workers, etc. all seem to take for granted that the full moon is a time of heightened activity. In what used to be known as 'lunatic' asylums and I've read that inmates were more heavily sedated during the full-moon periods, as a matter of course, to prevent mayhem.

Came across this snippit a moment ago, which supports numerous claims regarding increased risk of bleeding during surgeries conducted in the full-moon period:

In a study of 1,000 tonsillectomy operations, 82 per cent of post-operative bleeding crises occurred nearer the full moon than the new moon, according to the Journal of the Florida Medical Association.