Some of them pretended to speak "Selenite," and wished to teach it to Michel Ardan, who willingly lent himself to their innocent mania, and promised to take their messages to their friends in the moon.
"Singular folly!" said he to Barbicane, after having dismissed them; "and a folly that often takes possession of men of great intelligence.
One of our most illustrious _savants_, Arago, told me that many very wise and reserved people in their conceptions became much excited and gave way to incredible singularities every time the moon occupied them.
Do you believe in the influence of the moon upon maladies ?" "Very little," answered the president of the Gun Club.
"I do not either, and yet history has preserved some facts that, to say the least, are astonishing.

Thus in 1693, during an epidemic, people perished in the greatest numbers on the 21st of January, during an eclipse.

The celebrated Bacon fainted during the moon eclipses, and only came to himself after its entire emersion.

King Charles VI.

relapsed six times into madness during the year 1399, either at the new or full moon.
Physicians have ranked epilepsy amongst the maladies that follow the phases of the moon.