Legends about vampires and werewolves still live today
The modern culture is abundant with stories about vampires. Film producers make many movies about vampire hunters every year, lots of books about vampirism and vampires appear regularly. Feeding on blood has become one of the top issues discussed at a variety of forums, especially of Gothic teenagers. What is the official medicinal opinion about vampires today?
Almost all cultures existing in the world have stories telling about living corpses that raise from the dead to feed on human blood. In all epochs blood was considered to be the source of vital force, and creatures known for their ability to suck human blood were awfully terrifying. In oriental countries, evil gods and sinister spirits were said to be bloodsuckers while stories about dead people transformed into vampires were well-spread in the European culture.
The present-day notion of vampires is generally based upon the Slavic mythology. Popular superstitions about East European vampires exerted great influence upon people from neighboring countries, and soon the vampire image got universal for the entire of the world.
Slavic people believed that those who died as a result of killing and suicide stood higher chances of becoming vampires after death. Peasants believed that those who died at their not really old age would keep on living their lives even after death. They said that such deceased needed the vital force of those staying alive and sucked people’s blood as they wanted no other food.
If people apprehended that their deceased relatives could turn into vampires after death they took necessary measures beforehand to avoid such a tragic transformation. It was considered that a dead human would not turn into a bloodsucker after burial if a crucifix or garlic are placed close to the body in a coffin, if a dead man’s clothes are nailed to a coffin or if the heart of a deceased is pierced through with an aspen stake. It was believed that a dead body with a broken heart stood no chance of reviving, and also people thought that a vampire would not rise from a grave if his or her body is fastened tight to the ground.
In Romania, dead bodies of children and young people were kept unburied for several years so that others could have a chance to see if they had turned into vampires or not; at that those staying alive could watch decay of dead bodies. If the process of decay was normal then the dead body was buried completely; and if it turned that dead bodies remained intact for a longer period of time then such deceased were decapitated, garlic was put into the mouths and bodies were pierced through with stakes.
The first study of vampirism was conducted in the 18th century. The history of Serbian peasant Peter Plogojewitz that happened to him in 1725 is the most well-known documented instance of vampirism. The respectable peasant died in 1725 at the age of 62 and was buried in accordance with the local tradition. In two months after the burial nine people living in that village died of some strange disease within eight days. At that, each of the deceased said that a day before the dead Peter had come to visit them. Peter’s widow did not trust the stories until one night her dead husband started knocking on the door and demanding that the woman must give him her shoes. The poor woman was terribly scared and next morning fled from the village for ever.
Locals decided to disinter the dead body to conduct an investigation of the incident. Military men and the priest from the place were invited for an expertise. When exhumed the dead body of Peter seemed quite intact, the dead man had nails and hair longer than at the moment of burial, the skin looked quite fresh but slightly pale and there were stains of blood in the mouth. Locals insisted that the heart of the dead man must be pierced through with an aspen stake. And a fountain of fresh blood rushed out from Peter’s mouth right at the moment when the body was pierced through with the stake. While locals were burning the dead body of the vampire a military man who was in command of the exhumation wrote a detailed report for his army commanders. Soon, the report was published in the leading newspapers all over the world.
The scary publication gave rise to a war against vampires in Europe. People in all villages suspected at least one of the neighbors of being a bloodsucker; people exhumed dead bodies out from their graves to pierce the dead bodies with stakes to make sure that they would not turn into vampires. That was a real hysteria, and authorities in many countries charged doctors with an official investigation of all mysterious instances to provide a documented confirmation or denial of vampire existence.
In 1746, French theologian Antoine Augustine Calmet published a treatise on all instances of vampirism in Europe he knew. He also cautiously supposed in this work that vampires were probably no myth but the reality. The authority of the theologian was so great that the society immediately stated that existence of vampires was a scientifically proven fact.
The vampire hunting slightly abated in 1768 when Austrian doctor Gerhard Van Sweeten published his work saying that no vampires existed, and all known instances of alleged vampirism could be explained from a scientific point of view.
