"FULL MOON" TEMPER.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 170, 20 July 1935, Page 13

"FULL MOON" TEMPER.

SMASHES CROCKERY. DOCTORS AND ANCIENT BELIEF. (Special.—By Air Mail.) LONDON, June 29. The mystic belief—probably one of the superstitions of primeval man—that the moon exerts an influence in human affairs still plays a far larger part in life than most people realise. How the belief <still persists was shown at the inquest on Miss Maria McCormack, aged 4S. who was found dead at her home in Aldgate, London. Her brother stated that she behaved quite normally, "except at full moon," when she pot into a violent temper and would pick up a chair and smash all the crockery. There was a full moon when she died.

Medical evidence showed that she died from heart disease, and a verdict of death from natural causes was returned. Most medical men deride the idea that the full moon can influence human afTairs, but (hey concede that the medieval belief that tlio waxing and waning of the moon might have effect on the feeble-minded had some foundation of truth. Among recent instances of the supposed clTects of the full moon was the statement by a probation officer at Pontefract, Yorkshire, that the most serious quarrels in married life happen when the moon ifi full. Old-fashioned woodsmen will still tell you that the timber cut at "the dead of moon" will last without rotting.