A word formed from the Latin luna, the moon, and thus corresponding to the original Greek word and to the English "moonstruck;" applied to a class of persons mentally and often corporally diseased, who were believed to suffer most when the moon was full. Inanity, epilepsy, and morbid melancholy were among the frequent effects of demoniac possession, yet this possession existed independently of these effects, and was a more dreadful calamity. Lunatics are expressly mentioned in distinction from men possessed by evil spirits, Mt 4:24; 17:15. See DEVILS.

probably the same as epileptic, the symptoms of which disease were supposed to be more aggravated as the moon increased. In Mt 4:24 "lunatics" are distinguished from demoniacs. In Mt 17:15 the name "lunatic" is applied to one who is declared to have been possessed. (See Daemoniac.)