Vampires: a disease (of the media) or an epidemic (of superstition)

With all of the vampire material flooding the market over the last several years—Buffy, Twilight, Van Helsing—it’s no surprise that these creatures made an appearance at this year’s American Academy of Forensics meeting last week. After all, many of the scientists attending that meeting deal with evidence pertaining to dead bodies, and what are vampires if not dead?

Curiously enough, the original vampire legend may have developed from the effects of physical decomposition upon a corpse. For instance, as a body begins to break down, blood can leak out of the mouth. Meanwhile, bacteria grow inside the stomach and intestines, causing them to swell. With a creative imagination, someone might imagine that this dead body has returned to life, bitten some living creature (hence the blood on its mouth), and is effectively growing fat off of such sustenance. Additionally, this “growing” body can imitate guttural sounds such as groaning or sighing when it releases gases that have built up inside, offering further “proof” that the corpose has come to life.

However, explanations for the traditional vampire myth are abundant. David Dolphin, an organic chemist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, has proposed that the vampire myth may have sprung from the disease porphyrias. Porphyias is a rare genetic disease that afflicts from one in 25,000 to 1 in a million people; hence why it might not be well known or understood, and why, in the past, the vampire myth may have been created as an explanation, instead. What happens to people suffering from porphyrias is this: molecules called porphyrins build up in their tissues—usually skin tissue—and when these molecules are exposed to light, they generate free radicals that destroy the cells in which they reside. Effectively, this would keep any rational porphryias patient indoors, lest their skin start to burn and blister. Understandably, many of these people turn nocturnal. Thus, the vampiric sun aversion was born. Meanwhile, porphyrin molecules can accumulate in bone tissue as well, and if they accumulate in teeth, whoa-la: reddish, bloody fangs. Even the trademark widow’s peak can be explained by porphryias, since the disease can be linked to excessive hair growth, particularly on the forehead. And finally, just like vampires, porphyrias patients are inclined to avoid garlic, because certain chemicals contained in that plant increase the production of porphryin molecules in their bodies—thus increasing the patients’ suffering. Therefore, Dolphin’s argument that vampires may be modeled off of porphyrias patients is a persuasive one.

It may not be nearly as persuasive, however, as, “Rabies: A possible explanation for the vampire legend.” This was the argument put forth by Dr. Juan Gomez-Alonso, a neurologist at Hospital Xeral in Vigo, Spain, in the journal Neurology. Like the stereotypical vampire, a person with rabies will often attempt to bite others, and rabies is transmitted via the bite of an infected host—eerily the way that vampirism is transmitted via the bite of a host. Rabies also causes insomnia—as it affects the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that controls sleep—as well as hypersensitivity to strong stimuli such as light. Therefore, this profile could have created the model for the vampiric night life and aversion to light. Still, perhaps the most persuasive evidence provided in Gomez-Alonso’s paper is anthropologic. Gomez-Alonso reveals that a rabies outbreak occurred in Hungary around the time that people first began reporting vampire sightings, in the 1720s. Hungary was an ideal site for the vampire myth to originate, since its cold, damp winter season is particularly long and therefore perfectly suited for preserving corpses. The cold prevents the body from decomposing quickly, and the humidity causes saponification, a proces by which subcutaneous tissues transform into a waxy substance. The living dead? Perhaps not. But for any superstitious uneducated peasantry who dug up lifelike corpses that were filled with uncoagulated (i.e. oozing) blood—which, coincidentally, is a symptom of people who die from collapse, shock, or asphyxiation, as rabies patients are prone to do—a plausible explanation was needed. Vampirism could very well have been the explanation they created.

Coincidentally, we are still talking about it today! On Thursday, February 19th, Emilio Nuzzolese, DDS, Ph.D., and Matteo Borrini, B.A. presented “The Vampire Bites Back in Odontology and Anthropology: Case Report of Skeletal Remains on Nuovo Lazzaretto Island, Venice” at the AAF meeting in Denver. Perhaps Stephanie Meyers will want to attend next year’s meeting. Or Ann Rice. Or maybe we can raise Bela Lugosi from the dead and he can give his own presentation….