Myth: Porphyria=Vampirism

Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports
1

OK, since I managed to annoy my idol Cecil Adams by bringing up spaghetti sucking, I might as well bug him again.

In her book, American Vampires, Norine Dresser examines the American obsession with and transformation of the vampire legend from Eastern Europe. She also takes up another topic that she’s peripherally connected with.

A physician named David Dolphin once drew a connection between the symptoms of the disease Porphyria and the traditional traits of the vampire. Dresser was called by the AP reporter who reported the story (she’s a folklorist) to comment on it, and she made some vague offhand remark that was taken by the reporter as confirmation of Dolphin’s thesis. She has been associated with the idea ever since.

Unfortunately, she found out subsequently that (1) Dolphin’s claims don’t hold up at all under scrutiny (e.g. porphyria victims lack hemoglobin, but they don’t intuitively know that they lack it, and it is impossible for them to increase their own hemoglobin through ingesting blood, even if they did know that they lack it), and (2) the porphyria=vampirism theory took on a folkloric life of its own, and made life hell for real-world porphyria victims.

It was bad enough they had a disfiguring disease… But now the most likely place for the average person to read/hear about porphyria was in some version of the Dolphin hypothesis, which equated them with monsters.

People, especially children, with porphyria, were teased and stigmatized because of Dolphin’s theory.

How does Cecil enter into all this?

Cecil once (in the first Straight Dope book) passed along the Dolphin “vampirism=porphyria” theory, at least as a possibility, and it’d be cool to see him correct that in public someday.

2

Symptoms of some types of porphyria go along with vampire legends; 1) extreme sun sensitivity (those in pre-SPF days had to stay inside during the day), 2) the gums may become diseased & pull back, thus making it look as if the sufferer has Xtra long teeth/canines (not to mention bloody teeth) 3) porphyia victims don’t LACK hemoglobin, it’s defective. Defects in iron metabolism can cause cravings for, say, liver/bloody meat. The body may crave what it needs, even if it doesn’t know why.
Porphyria may not be the sole basis for vampire legends, but it is a genetic disease, and regional concentrations of victims may have helped further the vampire idea.

3

As I was re-reading The Winds of War/War and Remembrance by Wouk, I noticed thet one of the Russian generals was named Porphyria or some variation thereof. Is this a common name?

4

MaxCat:

Thank you for parroting the Dolphin theory as mentioned above. However, it’s not plausible. Porphyria victims do not in fact crave blood/red meat, and even if they did, they could not make up for their deficiencies by ingesting blood through the stomach (there is no way for the necessary hemoglobin to get from the stomach to the bloodstream undamaged).

The older forms of the vampire legend place a greater emphasis on the fact that the vampire is a corpse than on any cosmetic details like sharpness of teeth or tendency to avoid sunlight – Norine Dresser addresses this as well in her book, American Vampires.

What it adds up to is: the case for porphyria being a basis for vampire legends is very thin, and in part depends not on older, more traditional Eastern European vampire legends but on the BramStokerization and Hollywoodization thereof. And the belief that the legend is related to the disease has, despite its implausibility, become a legend itself, and has caused actual porphyria victims additional suffering.

Yes, you and I are enlightened souls, who would never taunt the nine-year-old in our neighborhood who suffers a debilitating and disfiguring disease, saying that they’re a “bloodsucker” and a “monster,” but not everybody is.

Yes, it’s fun to believe we have the “explanation” to the vampire legend, but (1) we don’t, and (2) this “explanation” stigmatizes and hurts people.

5

More of the Straight Dope was published in 1988 and cited David Dolphin’s paper from 1985. Clearly it’s time for an update.

6

If an update from Cecil is forthcoming, perhaps he’ll fill us in on some peripheral issues, such as the state of historical research into the possibility that porphyria was a major or contributing factor in the dementia suffered by George III.

By the way, I don’t know if it’s a common name in Russia, but Robert Browning wrote a poem called “Porphyria’s Lover,” but in the context of the poem (a strangulation fantasy, I seem dimly to remember) it’s clear that the name is used allegorically.

7

I’ll have to stand up for the theory.

> Porphyria victims do not in fact crave blood/red meat.

I thought it was well-established that pregnant women have been known to have the uge to eat dirt, presumably to fill some nutritional deficiency.

>they could not make up for their deficiencies by ingesting blood through the >stomach (there is no way for the necessary hemoglobin to get from the >stomach to the bloodstream undamaged).
Right, but the iron would get thru. Then their own body would build the hemoglobin from that.

>The older forms of the vampire legend place a greater emphasis on the fact >that the vampire is a corpse than on any cosmetic details like sharpness of >teeth or tendency to avoid sunlight –

Emphasis doesnt really matter. IMHO the very correlation of these two rare symptoms is strong evidence of some connection.

(2) this “explanation” stigmatizes and hurts people.

I’d work on teaching the stigmatizers some compassion and not try to fudge the facts.

One way of looking at it, it’s much less demeaning to be a vampire due to an inherited problem than to be one out of general cussedness (or having ben bitten by a vampire).

Regards,

George

8

[[> Porphyria victims do not in fact crave blood/red meat.

I thought it was well-established that pregnant women have been known to have the uge to eat dirt, presumably to fill some nutritional deficiency.]] George (?)
I dunno about pregnant women (musta missed something in an earlier post), but I always thought pica (the compulsion to eat non-food substances) was entirely a mental disorder.

That said, and for what it’s worth, I’ve always thought the porphyria theory had a lot to it.

9

I get told not to “fudge the facts” by somebody whose idea of reasoned argument is, “pregnant women eat dirt; therefore, porphyria victims must crave blood; QED.” Great.

These aren’t my facts; they’re Norine Dresser’s facts – check out her book American Vampires.

Or check out the CSICOP article on the topic, by Paul Barber, a research associate with the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, and author of Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality.

http://www.csicop.org/si/9603/staking.html

He makes the point, very well, that the older vampire tales never involve people walking around, visible, drinking blood; they always involved corpses which, suspected of drinking blood, are exhumed and “killed.”

From him I quote the following juicy nugget:

"And anyone can get media attention who will bring up Vlad Drakul or even the moribund porphyria theory, which supposes that people really were drinking blood to cure their rare disease, even though we have no evidence either that drinking blood would alleviate the symptoms of porphyria or that any live people were accused of drinking blood – it was always corpses. This theory never got beyond the wild hypothesis stage but has historical interest for following the trend that confuses folklore with fiction. I describe it as “moribund,” but such theories seemingly never die in the media, no matter how often they are demolished by evidence and argument. By now you couldn’t kill the porphyria theory with a stake.

10

MAY 10, 1999: Cecil retracts his porphyria=vampire contention!

My faith is shaken to its foundations… I can’t imagine all the people to whom I have spread this story…

Thomas Payne
Lexington, KY

11

The Master’s final comment, that “the practice of trying to match diseases with well-known figures in history or folklore has a long and not entirely reputable history” reminded me immediately of the long-held belief that John Merrick, aka the “Elephant Man” suffered from neurofibromatosis. Newly diagnosed patients were horrified at the association. It has recently been postulated that Merrick instead suffered from an extremely rare disorder, Proteus Syndrome. An excellent summary can be found at www.parascope.com (I hope it’s OK to include the plug!)

12

A fascinating article on the origins of the vampire myth can be found at:
http://www.generation.net/~valmont/ivtq/ivtq11.html#feature
The author speculates that the myth of the vampire is a result of the clash of the Christian worldview with the worldview of pre-Christian eastern European peoples. Highly recommended reading.
–Mousethief

13

My take on the origin of the concept of the Vampire:

A) Poorly-understood decay of corpses

B) Bloodlusting psychopaths like Vlad Tepes and Erzsebet Bathory

and C) Rabies.

Association with wild animals… hysterical strength… shunning of running water… transmission by biting… etc.

14

Porphyria, in which the body production of
porphyrics is excessive, and thus seeks to eliminate it thru the urine, gives urine a brownish color.

So, a simply pee test would decide if they have Porphyria or vampirish [Note: Porphyria is often called the vampire disease still].

15

The text of Porphyria’s Lover is available at “http://www.bartleby.com/101/720.html”.

It is pretty sick. One of my favorites.

16

I recently saw an article in some magazine (New Scientist?) that basically pointed out that all of the “classic” symptoms of vampirism matched those of human beings infected with rabies (and also there’s that whole things with wolves & bats and being bitten). Since rabies is a fairly common disease, and there seems to have been large outbreaks of it across Europe at approximately the same time as the origin of vampire legends, rabies would seem to be a more likely explanation than some obscure blood disease. (Anyone got or seen the article I’m talking about?)

I also seem to remember something about the sparkle of light off running water inducing fits in rabid people …

17

I would have mentioned this earlier, but the information has only now come my way: Cecil and the Teeming Millions may be interested to know that the fourth quarter, 1998 issue of “Skeptic” (vol 6, no 4) devotes about half of page 20 to a “new” report that porphyria may have been the cause of vampirism. The item quotes Wayne Tikkanen, a professor of chemistry at California State University, Los Angeles, as making in an October, 1998 AP interview what I would summarize as essentially the same points which David Dolphin made in 1985 and which Cecil so convincingly exploded two weeks ago. Additional claims include a report that 16th-century European judge H. Bouget ordered as many as 600 victims of the illness burned at the stake, and a speculation that a fear of the crucifix might be expected of porphyria victims who had learned to hide from the Inquisition. David Dolphin’s earlier interest in the subject is not mentioned, and none of the rebuttals Cecil has made to these notions were offered, somewhat surprising in the journal of the Skeptics Society. You may be assured that I will be sending them a certain URL by Monday’s post.

ps: The same journal also contains an article by James (The Amazing) Randi on the subject of dowsing. I was pleased to know right away, from having read Cecil’s long-ago column on the subject, that he was going to bring up “ideomotor action.” Of course, Randi has been working on this sort of thing for a very long time; for all I know, Cecil may have consulted him for that column.

18

Here is the article:

http://www.rabies.com/news/nws_vamp.htm

This was posted in Reuters health news last fall.

For a recap of Vampire related rabies symptoms:

Hyper-aggressiveness (Biting)
Hyper-sexuality (on the neck, no less :wink: )
Hyper-sensitivity to strong stimuli (e.g sunlight and garlic)
Dementia (Uncle Walt’s acting strange lately?)
Receding gumline (makes the teeth look longer)
Rabies common in animals associated with vampirism - dogs, wolves and bats.
Some common methods of dying due to rabies causes the blood to clot more slowly than normal - thus a corpse that still “bleeds” longer than it should. (Must still be alive, somehow)
And, as jefef mentioned, there was an epidemic of rabies in Eastern Europe about the time the vampires stories started.

And you don’t have that nasty PC problem either…

Mastery is not perfection but a journey, and the true master must be willing to try and fail and try again

19

Bottom line: neither rabies nor porphyria is responsible for the genesis of vampire legends. Theories like this have a certain appeal to the 20th century mind because they substitute a scientific explanation for what was once perceived as a supernatural phenomenon; unfortunately, the explanation itself is a form of superstition (or “legend” as a someone else posted above).

The truth is that the legendary aspects of vampirism don’t match up that closely with the symptoms of the disease. For example:

Sensitivity to sunlight and/or garlic. Vampire legends do not mention this. The vampire’s sensitivity to garlic was invented by Bram Stoker in 1897, centuries after the vampire legend had developed. The lethal effect of sunlight was invented in the 1922 silent film NOSFERATU.

Dementia. Vampires aren’t demented in the legends; they’re dead! If someone in the village was wasting away from anemia, the locals didn’t finger Uncle Walt for acting demented; they exhumed the corpse of a recently dead person, preferably one of ill-repute, and drove a stake through his heart. Buried corpse decompose more slowly than those exposed to air (say on the battlefield–which is how most people would have been familiar with decomposition), so the vampire hunters would see a coprse that, by their standards, had arrested decomposition. Also, hair and fingernails continue to grow after death, and this is a common description of exhumed vampires. Finally, when the stake was driven, reports often indicate that the corpse “groaned.” Most likely this is the result of gasses (caused by decomposition) being driven out of the chest cavity by the force of the stake.

Rabies caused by bats, which are associated with vampires. Nont until Bram Stoker. The vampire bat was named after the mythical monster, not the other way around. It wasn’t unstil Stoker that vampires turned into bats.

Heightened sexuality. Vampires didn’t become sexy until they appeared in literature. The long-suffering Dr. John Polidori took his revenge on Lord Byron by writing him up as Lord Ruthven in “The Vampire.” The sexuality came from Byron, not the vampire legend.

It’s just barely possible that the vampire legend as we know it from literature and film, was influenced by writers who incorporated details from sufferers of rabies and/or porphyria, in addition to the authentic legends. But the great century of vampire literature (the 1800s) took place long after the belief in real vampires had not only been born but also died.

So stop looking for explanations in disease. The real source for vampire legends lies partly in superstition and partly in slander against other religions. Claim: “The bodies of our saints remain undecomposed, because of their saintliness.” Response: “No, your supposed saints don’t decompose because they’re actually vampires!”

20

While I’m not a folklorist, my family came from a region of Hungary known for vampire legends. These are the stories that I grew up with, and my mother always had books about folklore available to me. We read stories similar to the ones that had been passed on mother to child for generations. Here’s another view:

Vampire legends are not at all like the hollywood version, that part is surely true. The vampires of my youth came to you and made you feel debilitated in your sleep. You had to do something that brought them, but you might never know what. There were no marks on the neck, though there might be marks elsewhere. There was nothing sexy about the vampires I grew up with (until I first saw Dracula on the late night movie. That nice looking Bela Lugosi…)

My thoughts are that the vampire legends are more related to incubi and succubi, in that they both debilitate you in your sleep. The signs of being attacked by a vampire, anemia, lethargy, and easy bruising sometimes leading to death, well, gee, does that sound like anything we know about? Especially around children? Especially children who live near industrial waste dumps?

Sorry, I don’t believe in any of the porphyria/rabies theories. I do, however, believe that I know what causes vampirism: lycanthropy. I know this because right before she turns into a vampire bat, my mother first becomes a werewolf and eats a few of the neighbors for a snack…