Among those who fail to accept that vampires are real, a popular way to explain the persistent worldwide nature of this “myth” is through disease. The theory goes that primitive cultures with no understanding of medical science somehow confused sickly individuals with superhuman predators. We need not spend too much time on this theory, ridiculous as it is, but it is worth spending a moment to dissect it. Your life may some day depend on telling the difference between a genuinely ill human being and a vampire feigning an illness in order to get closer to its prey.
Anaemia: Perhaps the most common of the “vampire” diseases, anaemia attacks the blood, causing red blood cell counts to fall. Like the vampires of folklore, sufferers tend to have pallid complexions and have trouble digesting solid food, but rather unlike vampires, they can also be weak and suffer fainting spells and shortness of breath. In short, anaemic vampires are unlikely to be threatening to anyone.
Catalepsy: Far rarer than anaemia, catalepsy seems to correspond to another element of the vampire myth: the tendency to sleep in coffins during the day. A cataleptic individual appears dead to the untrained eye, unable to move and with greatly slowed breathing and heartbeats. Buried prematurely, such individuals may have risen from the grave when they recovered from their cataleptic fits. Sadly, though such an illness did not make them vampires, they were unlikely to find a warm welcome from their superstitious families, who were rarely keen on the newly dead getting up and walking around.
Rabies: Perhaps the most frightening of the vampire diseases, rabies is a viral disease that spreads through animal bites, resulting in bizarre behaviour among its victims, resembling the vampire of legend. The disease attacks the central nervous system, driving the victim volently insane. Due to swollen throats, victims would drool bloody saliva, and insomnia and an increased sex drive would lead them to roam the night in search of victims, potentially spreading their infection. Ironically, vampire bats in Central and South America carry the rabies virus and can infect both cattle and humans…
Porphyria: The strangest of the vampire diseases, porphyria is another affliction of the blood but one so unique that many doctors nickname it “Vampire’s Disease”. Unidentified until the 20th Century, its victims are known to suffer from extreme sensitivity to sunlight, excessive hair growth and tightening of the lips and gums, resulting in more prominent teeth. Nowadays it can be treated, but in the past its victims’ strange appearance and habits would surely have resulted in them being marked as vampires.
Confusion over these diseases and their victims has helped to conceal the true nature of the vampire menace among us. As we still do not know the ultimate cause of the vampire menace, it may be that a variant of one of these diseases or another yet unknown played a part in setting them apart from humanity. For now though, we must remember that vampires are no suffering victims: they are the predators and we the prey!