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Article: Health: Spring can really hang you up
- Article from:
- The Independent (London, England)
- Article date:
- April 5, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1994 The Independent - London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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The idea that something out there in space can affect our health
down here on Earth is one of the oldest in medicine. Influenza, for
instance, literally means the "influence" of certain baleful
planetary forces; the word lunatic comes from the idea that the mad
were particularly susceptible to the moon. However, for modern
medicine, it is an approach that smacks too much of pseudo-science
so is now largely dismissed.
But an intriguing paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry
last month claims to have found evidence linking geomagnetic storms
in the earth's upper atmosphere with admissions to hospital for
severe depression.
Geomagnetism is the science concerned with the earth's magnetic ...