Part 1
You probably would be
surprised, but based on the thorough research I would like to note that there
is no straightforward answer on seemingly simple question.
That is true, the vampires
are totally fiction as they appear in popular romantic and horror fiction, are mythological
beings known primarily for their reliance on human blood (and occasionally
animal blood) for sustenance. While not real in a sense as actually existing as
depicted, there are a few caveats that require mentioning before dismissing
vampire phenomena off as a myth.
Part 1: Medical Conditions
Porphyria
One of the main medical conditions
we would like to point a finger on is porphyria, which may cause a combination
of anemia and psychological disorders leading to the belief that one must drink
blood to survive.
Recent research strongly suggested
that the vampire folklore might be originated from human beings that suffered a
genetic disease, late in the Middle Ages. Dr David H. Dolphin, a scientist, had
been researching the myth of vampires for a long while when he stumbled upon
this interesting fact.
In his paper, Dr Dolphin had advanced the theory that vampires are actually normal people, who suffered from one class of incurable hereditary diseases known commonly as porphyrias, of which there are at least 8 types:
- Acute Intermittent
Porphyria (AIP).
- Congenital Erythropoietic
Porphyria (CEP).
- Porphyria Cutanea Tarda
(PCT).
- ALAD Porphyria (ADP).
- Hepatoerythropoietic
Porphyria (HEP).
- Hereditary Coproporphyria
(HCP).
- Variegate Porphyria (VP).
- Erythropoietic Protoporphyria
(EPP) or Protoporphyria
All porphyria disorders can be grouped by symptoms—whether they affect
the skin or the nervous system. The cutaneous porphyrias affect the skin.
People with cutaneous porphyria develop blisters, itching, and swelling of
their skin when it is exposed to sunlight. The acute porphyrias affect the nervous
system. Symptoms of acute porphyria include pain in the chest, abdomen, limbs,
or back; muscle numbness, tingling, paralysis, or cramping; vomiting;
constipation; and personality changes or mental disorders. These symptoms
appear intermittently.
Porphyria is a slight malfunction in the bodies’
chemicals and sufferers become afflicted with the same symptoms as the fabled
"vampires". Their bodies usually became grotesquely disfigured, and
they had extreme sensitivity to any forms of natural/unnatural light (even the
exposure to sunlight left patients' bodies with sores and scars).
Sometimes, the patients' fingers would fall off and resemble that of animal claws. Lips and gums would stretch so that the teeth would become more pronounced, of course giving resemblance to a vampire bat.
Dr Dolphin concluded that because of this, victims would only venture out at night and also may grow their hair long as it acted as protection against the deadly night. He argued that porphyria victims in the past instinctively sought the compensation for their natural weirdness by biting and sucking the blood of others. In this day and age, people suffering from this disease can simply inject themselves daily, weekly, or whenever necessary.
Porphyria, the Greek word for “purple”, is distinctive due it’s discoloration of
the urine, often dark blue or purple in color. A victim of porphyria cannot
produce heme, a major and vital component of red blood. Today, this disease is
treatable with regular injections of heme into the body. However, as little as
fifty years ago, this treatment was unavailable and the disease unknown. A
common misconception was that ingesting another person’s heme (or blood) would
replenish one’s own supply, but recent studies have shown
this concept completely false.
Looking back on this information, we can draw the conclusion that the superstitions of our predecessors in the 'Dark Ages' could create such uproar from a genetic dysfunction. Victims suffering the disease were usually located in concentrated parts of Europe and the world, thus bringing the fabled myths and legends from Transylvania.
Anemia
Another medical disorder that was often mistaken for a symptom of a
vampire attack is Anemia. Derived from the Greek word for “bloodlessness”,
anemia is a blood disease in which the red-cell count is unusually low. Red
cells are the carriers of oxygen throughout the body. When a person suffers
from anemia, their symptoms are caused by inadequate oxygen. These symptoms may
include:
- A pale complexion.
- Fatigue.
- Fainting spells.
- Shortness of breath.
- Digestive disorders
There are three main causes of anemia: disease, heredity, and severe
blood loss. Over the ages, a person suffering from these symptoms may have been
under suspicion of a vampire attack. Although the victim may have contracted a
disease or simply have inherited the blood disorder, society would have found
it easy to believe that the symptoms resulted from a vampire attack,
and these symptoms may even have suggested that the victim was beginning
his own transition to a vampire, marked with a pale complexion and trouble
eating food.
Catalepsy
The next disorder, though much rarer than the previous one, is still very
much to blame for the myth. Catalepsy is a disorder of the nervous system that
causes a form of suspended animation. It causes a loss of voluntary motion, rigidity
to the muscles, as well as decreased sensitivity to pain and heat.
A person suffering from catalepsy can see and hear but cannot move. Their
breathing, pulse, and other regulatory functions are slowed that to an
untrained eye, it would seem as though they were dead. This condition can last
from minutes to days. Before 20th century medicine came along, there were few
diagnostic tests that could be done on a body to ensure that a
person was in fact dead, and so it is likely that persons suffering
from catalepsy could have been declared dead prematurely. Embalming a corpse
before burial has only been introduced in the last hundred years or
so, making it very possible that these bodies were declared dead and
buried while the person still lived. Upon recovering from their catalyptic
state, the person would try to dig and claw their way to the surface,
giving townfolk the idea that these people where rising out of their
graves from the dead. Many myths may have arisen from this single
condition alone.
Sleep Paralysis
Sleep paralysis is a condition in which someone, most often lying in a supine position, about to drop off to sleep, or just upon waking from sleep realizes that s/he is unable to move, or speak, or cry out. This may last a few seconds or several moments, occasionally longer. People frequently report feeling a "presence" that is often described as malevolent, threatening, or evil. An intense sense of dread and terror is very common.
The presence is likely to be vaguely felt or sensed just out of sight but thought to be watching or monitoring, often with intense interest, sometimes standing by, or sitting on, the bed. On some occasions the presence may attack, strangling and exerting crushing pressure on the chest. People also report auditory, visual, proprioceptive, and tactile hallucinations, as well as floating sensations and out-of-body experiences. These various sensory experiences have been referred to collectively as hypnagogic and hypnopompic experiences (HHEs).
People frequently try, unsuccessfully, to cry out. After seconds or minutes one feels suddenly released from the paralysis, but may be left with a lingering anxiety. Extreme effort to move may even produce phantom movements in which there is proprioceptive feedback of movement that conflicts with visual disconfirmation of any movement of the limb. People may also report severe pain in the limbs when trying to move them.
Physiologically, it is closely related to the normal paralysis that occurs during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, also known as REM atonia. In that, some scientists and physicians believe it to be a "natural" effect of the sleep cycle. Sleep paralysis occurs when the brain is awakened from a REM state into essentially a normal fully awake state, but the bodily paralysis is still occurring. This causes the person to be fully aware, but unable to move. In addition, this state may be accompanied by hypnagogic hallucinations.
Researchers have pretended that sleep paralysis occurs in order to prevent the body from manifesting the sleeper's dreams which may be linked to post-synaptic inhibition of motor neurons in the pons region of the brain. In particular, low levels of melatonin may stop the depolarization current in the nerves, which prevents the stimulation of the muscles, to prevent the body from enacting the dreamt activity (ie. preventing a sleeper from running when dreaming about running).
Other Disorders
There are some other
medical conditions, which can partially explain the vampire related appearance
and characteristics:
- Lupus. A chronic inflammatory disease of unknown
origin, affecting many systems of the body, often characterized by a rash
on the face and other areas exposed to sunlight, involving the vascular
and connective tissues of many organs, and accompanied by serologic
abnormalities. Essentially an auto-immune disease where your body begins
to call its own tissues foreign and attack them as it would a bacteria or
virus. The reaction to sunlight is caused by the bodies’ inability to
recover from UV induced genetic damage of skin cells in a normal manner.
- Xeroderma
pigmentosum. Only about
200 people in the United States, or two to four persons in about 1 million
live births, suffer from xeroderma pigmentosum, a rare genetic defect that
causes extreme sensitivity to the sun's ultraviolet rays. Ultraviolet
light disrupts normal cell functioning in people who have the disorder,
causing cancerous cell changes. Although there are various degrees of the
disorder, most persons with xeroderma pigmentosum acquire severe sunburn
after any sun exposure, although using sunscreen and layering clothes
sometimes protects against the sun's negative effects.
- Pica. We all ate sand as toddlers on the playground
once, but there are some people who never stop. Pica is a disorder in
which sufferers have an appetite for basically everything that you are
never supposed to eat: metal, dirt, sand, chalk, batteries, office
supplies such as tacks, toothbrushes, soap, and certainly, drinking blood.
Here’s where it gets interesting: pica is caused by a mineral deficiency,
so whatever the patient is eating usually contains the mineral their body
is lacking in. Pica is most commonly found in children (usually those with
mental developmental disorders) and women (caused by traumatic events,
OCD, or schizophrenia).
- Hematolagnia. A small minority of people are sexually
aroused by drinking human blood. They have a condition called hematolagnia
-- popularly called a blood fetish. This is normally considered a
paraphilia, and is one of many dozens of unusual sexual interests that is
often their sole means of sexual gratification. Because of the public's
frequent desire to be absolutely normal in their sexual practices, people
with hematolognia -- or any other paraphilia -- are often despised and
even feared.
- Renfield's
Syndrome. This is a
disorder named after the fictional character in Dracula who ate
flies, spiders, etc. Richard Noll first developed the syndrome. He believed
that it is triggered by an experience after a childhood injury when the
young person finds bleeding or tasting blood to be exciting. Noll wrote
that the syndrome progresses to include intentional scrapes or skin cuts
to allow the collection of blood for drinking. This leads to eating or
drinking the blood of insects, small animals, birds, etc. This syndrome is
a neat theory, but is not widely accepted by mental health professionals.
It does not appear in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).
So, many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs have been offered as an explanation for the superstition, and sometimes mass hysteria, caused by vampires. Everything ranging from premature burial to the early ignorance of the body's decomposition cycle after death has been cited as the cause for the belief in vampires.
Sources and Additional Information:
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