Biorhythms and Disease

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Abstract
WITHOUT THE AID of modern diagnostic and therapeutic methods, physicians of old could only observe the nature and progression of disease. The ancients attributed rhythmicity of human behavior and recurrence of diseases to cosmic influence. Lunar phases supposedly controlled menstruation and lunacy, but maladies that recurred in no apparent relationship to any natural cycles weakened the concept. In 1629, Aubrey described his own trouble: "About 3 or 4 years, I had sickness of vomiting (the bellyake; pain in the side) for 12 hours every fortnight for several years, then monthly, then quarterly, and at least once in halfe a year.... about 12 it ceased."1Heberden2referred to "pains which are regularly intermittent, the fits of which return as periodically as the ague; such I have known in the bowels, stomach, breast, loins, arms and hips." These disorders have the earmarks of what now is called periodic peritonitis.

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