e regarding the moon's
influence on health: "There is much reason for regarding the moon
as a source of evil, yet not that she herself is so, but only the
circumstances which attend her. With us it happens that a bright
moonlight night is always a cold one. The absence of cloud allows
the earth to radiate its heat into space, and the air gradually cools,
until the moisture it contained is precipitated in the form of dew,
and lies like a thick blanket on the ground to prevent a further
cooling. When the quantity of moisture in the air is small, the
refrigerating process continues until frost is produced, and many a
moonlight night in spring destroys half or even the whole of the
fruit of a new season. Moonlight, therefore, frequently involves the
idea of frigidity. With us, whose climate is comparatively cold, the
change from the burning, blasting, or blighting heat of day, or
sun-up, to the cold of a clear night, or sun-down, is not very great, but
within the tropics the change is enormous. To such sudden
vicissitudes in temperature, an Indian doctor, in whom I have great
confidence, attributes fevers and agues. As it is clear that those
persons only, whose business or pleasure obliges them to be out on
cloudless nights, suffer from the severe cold produced by the rapid
radiation into space of the heat of their own bodies and that of the
earth, those who remain at home are not likely to suffer from the
effects of the sudden and continued chill. Still further, it is clear that
people in general will not care to go out during the darkness of a
moonless night, unless obliged to do so. Consequently few persons
have experience of the deleterious influence of starlight nights. But
when a bright moon and a hot, close house induce the people to turn
out and enjoy the coldness and clearness of night, it is very probable
that refrigeration may be followed by severe bodily disease.
Amongst such a people, the moon would rather be anathematised
than adored. One may enjoy half an hour, or perhaps an hour, of
moonlight, and yet be blighted or otherwise injured by a whole
night of it." [387] In Denmark a superstition is current concerning
the noxious influences of night. The Danes have a kind of elves
which they call the "Moon Folk." "The man is like an old man with
a low-crowned hat upon his head; the woman is very beautiful in
front, but behind she is hollow, like a dough-trough, and she has a
sort of harp on which she plays, and lur