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Diseases linked to Vampirism





Xeroderma Pigmentosum (XP), meaning pigmented dry skin is a rare, often fatal genetic disorder that leaves its victims acutely vulnerable to skin and eye cancers if they are even briefly exposed to sun or any ultraviolet rays. The body fails to produce one of the enzymes necessary to make heme, the red pigment in hemeglobin. Strangely, Garlic stimulates heme production (a reason for its inclusion in many herbal blood tonics) and can turn a mild case of porphryia into a severe and painful one. There is less than 100,000 identified cases of XP nowadays but inbreeding could have stimulated the disease in the middle ages, creating pockets of it in isolated areas. Drinking blood could have been considered as a remedy in the dark ages but the human body is not made to assimilate heme directly from blood so it cannot be a cause of vampirism.



Another interesting origin of the vampire is the negative image of the Christ. A series of oppositions can be easily described:



Blood represents life in the Christian religion and the Eucharestia is the transformation of wine into blood, bread into flesh. The vampire is the total negation of all the symbol of the Eucharestia as Dracula sucks the blood that Jesus is giving away. More interesting is the process of contamination by which the Vampire is dividing himself into new Vampires by having them drunk his own dark blood.