Everything about Lunatic totally explained
A
lunatic (colloquially: "
looney" or "
loon") is a commonly used term for a person who is
mentally ill, dangerous,
foolish or unpredictable, a condition once called
lunacy.
Linguistic roots
The word
lunatic is borrowed from
Latin "lunaticus", which gains its stem from "luna" for
moon, which denotes the traditional link made in
folklore between
madness and the phases of the moon. This probably refers to the
symptoms of cyclic
mood disorders such as
bipolar disorder or
cyclothymia, the symptoms of which may also go through phases. As yet there no evidence whatsoever for any causal link between phases of the moon and the progression of mood disorder symptoms. Correlation has been observed in distant parts.
Mental institutions used to be called "lunatic asylums" or colloquially, "loony bins".
In
Russian,
Polish and
Czech, a lunatic refers to a
sleepwalker, literally "one who walks under the moon" or "moon walker".
In Romanian, a word with the meaning of "lunatic" is "zănatic", derived from Latin "dianaticus", from
Diana, the Roman goddess of the Moon.
Lunar hypothesis
In a
1999 Journal of Affective Disorders article, a
hypothesis was suggested indicating that the phase of the moon may in the past have had an effect on bipolar patients by providing light during nights which would otherwise have been dark, and affecting susceptible patients through the well-known route of sleep deprivation. With the introduction of
electric light, this effect would have gone away, as light would be available every night, explaining the negative results of modern studies. They suggest ways in which this hypothesis might be tested.
Use of the term "lunatic" in legislation
In
England and
Wales the
Lunacy Acts 1890 - 1922 referred to lunatics, but the
Mental Treatment Act 1930 changed the legal term to "Person of Unsound Mind", an expression which was replaced under the
Mental Health Act 1959 by
mental illness. "Person of unsound mind" was the term used in 1950 in the English version of the
European Convention on Human Rights as one of the types of person who could be deprived of liberty by a judicial process. The 1930 act also replaced
Asylum with
Mental Hospital.
Criminal Lunatics became
Broadmoor Patients in 1948 under the
National Health Service Act. The terms are still used by journalists, especially in
tabloid newspapers.
Lunar Distance
The term
lunatic was also used by supporters of
John Harrison and his
marine chronometer method of determining
longitude to refer to proponents of the
Method of Lunar Distances, advanced by
Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne.
Later, members of the
Lunar Society of
Birmingham called themselves
lunaticks. In an age with little street lighting, the society met on or about the night of the full moon.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Lunatic'.
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