The Vampire: A Casebook

Forensic Pathology and the European Vampire

PAUL BARBER Forensic Pathology and the European Vampire Tbe vast majority ofbooks and articles devoted to tbe vampire offer little tbat is new on tbe subject. Instead tbey are ratber vampirelike tbemselves, feeding on tbe flesb ofpreviously publisbed books and articles. Tbe same cases ofvampire attacks are repeated again and again witb little or no insigbt to reward tbe reader. It is for tbis reason tbat tbe following essay, by bistorian Paul Barber, deserves plaudits and praise. Barber, researcb associate at tbe Fowler Museum ofCultural History at tbe University ofCalifornia at Los Angeles, offers a new and exciting interpretation oftbe vampire. In an attempt to demystifj tbe supernatural, Barber provides a down-to-eartb natural explanation of tbe vampire pbenomenon. His tbeory bas tbe advantage ofbeing able to accountfor a good many oftbe cbaracteristics of tbe vampire in terms of tbat creature's alleged pbysical attributes. Tbe erudite essay included bere in tbis volume was expanded into a book-lengtb exposition entitled Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), wbicb readers intrigued witb bis argument sbould definitely consult. If there is in this world a well-attested account, it is that of the vampires. Nothing is lacking: official reports, affidavits of well-known people, of surgeons, of priests, of magistrates; the judicial proof is most complete. And with all that, who is there who believes in vampires? - Rousseau, Lettre it I'Archeveque de Parisl I The modern reader might assume that the vampires of the eighteenth centurywere much like the ghosts oftoday, which exist in a rather murkyunderworld , far from the haunts of Scientific Method. In actuality, however, as one might gather from Rousseau's remarks, nothing could be further from the truth: a number of"vampires" were actually dissected by surgeons, who Reprinted from the Journal ofFolk/m·e Research 24 (1987): 1-32. 109 Paul Barber compiled a report in which they came to the conclusion that there was in fact something very spooky going on. Moreover, whatever was happening, it was not only spooky, it was catching : the vampire infected his victims, causing them to become vampires as well, so that the phenomenon tended to occur as an epidemic. In the late seventeenth century, such an epidemic ofvampirism occurred in Poland and Russia, and the French Mercure galant carried the following account of it: They appear from midday to midnight and come to suck the blood of living people and animals in such great abundance that sometimes it comes out of their mouths, their noses, and especially, their ears, and that sometimes the body swims in its blood which has spilled out into its coffin. They say the vampire has a kind ofhunger that causes him to eat the cloth he finds around him. This revenant or vampire, or a demon in his form, comes out ofhis tomb and goes about at night violently embracing and seizing his friends and relatives and sucking their blood until they are weakened and exhausted, and finally causes their death. This persecution does not stop at one person but extends to the last person of the family, at least as long as one does not interrupt its course by cutting off the head or opening the body of the vampire. Then one finds his body, in its coffin, limp, pliable, bloated, and ruddy, even though he may have been dead for a long time. A great quantity ofblood pours from his body.2 Such accounts became common in the eighteenth century, and the bestattested of them, the locus classicus of vampire stories, told of events that occurred in the 1720s, near Belgrade, when a man named Arnold Paole died an accidental death, after which several people died suddenly of what had been traditionally viewed as "vampirism." Forty days after his burial, Paole was exhumed: [It was found] that he was complete and incorrupt, also that completely fresh blood had flowed from his eyes, ears, and nose, and the shirt and graveclothes were also bloody. The old nails on his hands and feet, along with the skin, had fallen off, and new ones had grown. Since they could see from this that he was a true vampire, they drove a stake through his heart, according to their customs , whereupon he let out a noticeable groan and bled copiously.3 Afew years later there was another such outbreak of"vampirism." Among others, the authorities found: A woman by the name of Stana, twenty years old, who had...