The concept of vampires has been around for thousands of years, and demons recorded in some ancient civilizations are considered precursors to modern vampires.
It was not until 1819 that the writer John Polidoli wrote a short novel called "Vampire", and since then the overall image and definition of the vampire has been deeply imprinted in the minds of readers and become the topic of after-dinner talk.
But some people think that they are not reading novels, but popular science knowledge. Rumors began to spread that vampires were the resurrection of the wicked, the fallen, or the wizards. This kind of saying spread ten times and ten hundred times in the superstitious society at that time, and it spread so quickly. Like operation witch hunts, it caused panic on a massive scale. Many people who die mysteriously are thought to have lost their lives as vampires. But in fact, these people only suffered from diseases that were not understood at the time, suddenly died or became aggressive, so that all this was overshadowed by superstition.
Hello everyone, here are amazing discoveries, today we come together to explore, vampire legends and truths.
New England in the 18th century was the most ferocious place for vampires, listening to different news almost every day.
In 1793, a woman named Rachel Harris died suddenly, and his husband, Isaac, became friends with Rachel's sister, Herda. Not long after the two were together, Hurda watched as she grew emaciated.
Some villagers in the same village are very frightened, thinking that Rachel is jealous after watching her husband and sister get better, and turns into a vampire to suck their lives.
So, in February 1793, the villagers used the most popular digging method at the time to dig Rachel's body out of the grave and throw it into the blacksmith's furnace for burning, hoping to eliminate the vampire. But by September 1793, Hurda had died.
This is a true story that has been documented. For the next hundred years, similar things kept happening.
It wasn't until 1892, a terrible event, that put an end to the vampire panic, and the 19-year-old Messy Brown was known as the last vampire in New England.
The tragic stories often begin happily, the Messy Brown family is a very ordinary farmer in Rhode Island, the father is called George's mother is called Mary, and the family has an older sister and a younger brother, and it is already a very happy thing to be able to live a stable life in a period of great panic.
But everything changed from the death of his mother, Mary, in 1883, when the family was cursed and her sister died two years later. Then in 1892 Messy Brown also died, because the land was frozen in the winter, and the remains could only be temporarily stored in the family cellar.
Her younger brother, Edwin, also had the same symptoms as before her mother and two older sisters died.
The villagers were worried that there were vampires in the family, so they instilled vampire rumors into the desperate George. Tell him that if an undecavened body can be found among his deceased relatives, it is likely that it is a vampire sucking the lives of living relatives. If you want to save your son, you must listen to them.
Although George resisted and disbelieved, he did not stop the villagers from digging the graves of their loved ones.
On March 17, 1892, Brown watched as a doctor and villager dug up the remains of their loved ones, and the doctors identified them, and the bodies of Brown's wife and eldest daughter both showed normal decomposition. Messy Brown's body, on the other hand, was intact and showed no signs of decay.
At this time, George Brown began to believe the rumors of the villagers, tacitly acquiescing that his little daughter was a vampire.
Doctors denied this claim, however. He explained to the villagers that Messy Brown had only been dead for two months, and that the body had been placed in the cold cellar in the winter, thus alleviating the decay rate of the body.
Although the doctors were giving everyone popular science knowledge, the villagers did not want to believe it at all, insisting on burning Messy Brown's heart.
After mixing the ashes with the water, he fed it to his brother Edwin, believing that this would save his life. George watched silently, and he thought it was the only hope of saving Edwin.
Unfortunately, two months later, Edwin died.
So, did the Messy Brown family really suffer from the curse of the vampire?
According to folklorist Michael Bell, since the late 18th century, more than 80 bodies in remote areas of England have been exhumed and burned as vampires. Michael also said that the timeline of the Vampire Panic is completely consistent with the timeline of the tuberculosis pandemic.
【Tuberculosis = Vampire】
Tuberculosis was known as the White Plague in the 19th century, but its origins were much earlier, and things that were not understood would be described as supernatural events.
Tuberculosis in the early stage is generally coughing, coughing up sputum, it is easy to make people feel that it is a common cold. At the same time, it can also be accompanied by fatigue and loss of appetite. People who can't eat food will lose weight, and their resistance will become worse and worse, becoming a cycle.
In advanced stages, the body experiences respiratory failure and persistent coughing up blood, as well as death from hemorrhagic shock due to blood production. The symptoms looked like a curse and something sucking life at the time.
In fact, in 1882, a German scientist named Robert Koch had already discovered the germ that causes tuberculosis. It can easily spread between families through droplets, so the above two cases are infected with each other in the family and eventually die one after another.
It was not until 1892, the year of Messy Brown's death, that germology was accepted, but no drugs had been developed to treat it, and doctors could only advise patients to exercise more outdoors and bask in the sun.
It was not until 1921 that the BCG vaccine came out to be truly effective in dealing with tuberculosis.
But the rumors of vampires have not disappeared.
【Rabies = Vampire】
In some film and television works and novels, vampires are very aggressive, they lie out day and night, have a strong desire for blood, have a very strong reproductive ability, and whoever bites will become a vampire.
But they are afraid of sunlight, holy water, and pungent smells like garlic. These are all described in John Polidoli's vampire novels.
In Hungary and the Balkans in the 18th century, rabies was very fierce, and once rabies attacked, the disease was almost exactly the same as that of vampires.
If we look at this picture, vampires are mostly male, and the incidence of rabies in men is more than seven times that of women.
Vampires like to bite people's necks and can turn each other into vampires. Some men with rabies have a tendency to bite and spread rabies through wounds and saliva.
Vampires hate garlic holy water and sunlight. People with rabies are very sensitive and respond abnormally to sunlight, water, and pungent odors.
Vampires have two fangs when they open their mouths, while rabies patients have spasms in their faces, so they can't close their mouths, and their gums are always exposed.
There is blood on the corners of the vampire's mouth, and rabies patients have blisters on their lips when they are infected, and blood will flow out after biting.
So, some people who are considered vampires are actually suffering from rabies, and John Polidoli is based on this disease and conceives the image of a vampire in the novel. I just didn't expect some people to take it as true, but it was also understood in that period, after all, there was still a lack of professional theories and vaccines.
After talking about rabies, there is actually another kind of disease, which is also rumored to be a vampire disease.
【Porphyria ≠ Vampire】
In 1985, biochemist David Duo divided David Dolphin and proposed a rare blood supply disorder, that is, porphyria, and the link between vampire legends. David believes that a large amount of blood loss may cause heme to be difficult to pass through the stomach wall and enter the bloodstream, so patients will crave heme in human blood, and only by sucking blood will alleviate symptoms. But this theory was later dismissed,
There is only one reason why porphyria patients are rumored to be vampires, that is, their skin will be burned in the sun, so these patients will choose to lie out day and night. But this condition only occurs in patients with cutaneous porphyria. Generally drink more water or eat β carotene can be relieved.
The above are all diseases that make it look like vampires, but in history, there is a person who is called the ancestor of vampires.
[Vlad the Third = Dracula]
Dracula believes that many people know that the famous Count Vampire, his prototype is Ferrard III of Romania
In 1431, Vlad III was born in Transylvania, western Romania. Despite being born into an aristocratic family, in the years before the weak crown, he almost dodged in the cracks of the family struggle, and almost died several times. Over time, he developed psychological problems, became somewhat grotesque, and developed a jealous personality.
The grown-up Vlad III wanted to make a career in exchange for a place in the family, so he joined the "Dragon Knight Legion" against the Turks. Changed his real name "Flet de Tepes" to "Dracula".
The name is derived from the Latin word "Draco", which translates to dragon, while Dracula means "son of a dragon".
This "Son of the Dragon" does have the courage of a dragon, and his ability to conquer the invincible battle is very frightening to the Turks. By the age of 25, Dracula had become a scheming man, and he used his ingenuity to obtain the assistance of the Princes of Transylvania to eliminate the enemies that stood in his way and succeed him as the monarch of Wallachia.
But according to the study of Central Asian history and Western history, Vlad III was not so good, he often played the role of a wall between Turkey and Hungary, whoever had a thick arm he helped whomever was weak, he helped the strong fight.
Thus, his enemies, and the Romanians who disliked him, began to write various works with him as the protagonist, in which Vlad III was no longer a national hero, but a bloodthirsty demon. Noshi says he loves blood and takes pleasure in watching Turkish prisoners of war dismembered while eating. When he ate breakfast, he was sure to use the fresh blood of the Turkish prisoners of war as jam. Over time, unable to escape the temptation of blood, he began to drink blood wine, and even asked his subordinates to find young and beautiful women for him, just for him to suck fresh blood.
Since then, Vlad III (Dracula) has become the embodiment of the "vampire", and a large number of works since then have been based on him, creating various stage plays and even being adapted to the screen many times.