Vampire myths have real basis
Halloween tales of bloodsucking creatures stemmed from fear but also medical disorders, plagues

BY DAVID ZIZZO Comments 1
Published: October 31, 2009

If they’re not out trick-or-treating, they’re starring in "Twilight” movies or TV shows. Vampires weren’t always such fun.

Multimedia

NewsOK Related Articles

Eerie activity in Moore draws notice from paranormal...
10/31/2009 MOORE — "Activity” is the word Kay Davis uses to describe mysterious sights, sounds and sensations. And just because today is Halloween...

For centuries, the mythical creatures caused fear among many people. The origins of this legend, said Dr. Stephen Prescott, president of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, may have a medical basis.

"People grappled with illness and death long before we had modern science,” said Prescott, a medical researcher. "And if a mass illness like a plague or highly contagious virus swept through a population, people grasped for an explanation that they could see and touch.”

The vampire was that explanation.

"When a cluster of people died in your village, the true culprit was probably a microorganism like tuberculosis or smallpox,” Prescott said. "But without formal education or modern science to guide them, people simply came up with an explanation that made sense to them — an undead killer.”

Sometimes, in such circumstances, the bodies of the recently deceased were exhumed. And this, many believe, helped give birth to the vampire legend.

"Many of the details we attribute to vampires probably come from the way bodies react to decomposition,” Prescott said. "The lips and gums lose fluid and contract after death, which could create the illusion of longer teeth or fangs. Similarly, the skin contracts, making it appear that hair and fingernails have continued to grow.”

Another facet of the "life after death” myth likely sprung from the fact that corpses sometimes seemed larger, as if they had been eating and growing. This led to stories of the dead rising from their graves at night, to feast on the living.

This phenomenon, Prescott said, is caused by bacteria consuming a body. "The bacteria emit gases, and those gases make the torso swell,” he said. "Sometimes the gas escaping the body even causes a groaning sound.”

Last year, archeologists in Italy discovered remains of a suspected "vampire” among corpses of 16th-century plague victims in Venice, Livescience.com reported. The woman’s skull was found with a rock in the mouth, a common tactic of gravediggers of the time. The rock, they believed, could prevent a vampire from chewing through the burial shroud and infecting others with the plague, an anthropologist explained.

Fear of vampires is still strong today in some rural parts of Romania, according to New Scientist. The magazine reported that in 2005, scientists examined the body of a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher that had been exhumed by relatives. Officials said family members, plagued by sickness and nightmares after the relative’s death, drove a pitchfork into the corpse and performed various rituals in an attempted "vampire slaying.”

Prescott said some experts have drawn a parallel between vampire legends and a rare blood disorder called porphyria. Those with the disease often suffer from sensitivity to sunlight, with exposure causing blisters, rashes and increased hair growth on areas such as the forehead.

Another condition loosely tied to the vampire legend is rabies, which can be passed through bat and wolf bites. "The symptoms match the stories. People who are bitten become tired and feverish and sleep a lot,” Prescott said. The condition can also lead to a bloody frothing at the mouth.

Throughout history, researchers have tried to explain why people die, work that continues today, he said. "Except the killers we’re trying to understand are diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s. To me, those are much scarier than any vampire.”