What is a vampire's body temperature?

Cafe Society
41

As far as sex goes, I think that vampires must have enough residual humanity that they do have a psychological need for sex, even if the biological drive to procreate is absent. I imagine vampire jizz is probably just clear fluid. Also, with regards to other functions such as breathing, their bodies probably go through the motions of inhaling and exhaling, even though there is no exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Which would explain the “water torture” scene from BOTN- the lungs go through the motions and suck in the water, and the body might have enough physical memory to create the psychological effect of feeling that one is “drowning”, which would make it a terrifying experience, but since there is no need for oxygen, once the water was exhaled, the Turok-Han could dunk you again and again.

According to Dracula, vampires pee about once a day and crap once a week. I imagine a beer-drinking, blooming-onion and buffalo wing eating vampire would do so considerably more often, especially considering that he wouldn’t actually be metabolizing the food and therefore it would, um, go straight through him.

Incidentally, we never see any of the characters on BtVS use the facilities. Saying “I have to pee” is generally just an excuse to leave a room.

BTW, since, if Spike is anything to judge by, vampires are affected by alcohol, and apparently nicotine, I wonder how one would be affected by smoking a doobie?

42

There is certainly nothing like that in Stoker. Are you talking about one of the movies?

43

Thea Logica:

Or by feeding on a Doobie (Brother)?

44

Oh, hell, I can’t find it when I’m looking for it.

It’s somewhere in Van Helsing’s exposition on the powers/limitations/physiology of the vampire. It’s only a passing mention, but for some reason it stuck in my mind. I’ll post a quote later when I actually find it.

45

Please do; I’ve read Dracula at least four times and don’t remember anything like that, although I suppose Stoker’s Victorian prose might have muddied the meaning enough that I didn’t get what was really being said.

46

Well, in Castlevania at least, vampires can not only have sex, they can have perfectly fine kids as well. But that’s not excatly the best source of lore, really… No mention of temperature anywhere or anything else really pertaining to the disscussion, though.

47

It was definitely couched in Victorian terminology- I had actually missed it the first couple of times I read the book because I was “wooshed” by the language.

I think I’m going to have to re-read the entire book now.

Which is fine. I love the story.

48

I think I’m going to go and re-read it now, too. I don’t remember any mention of excretion, even in typical Victorian euphemisms. I remember van Helsing putting forth some sort of theory about how vampires turned their victims into vampires. He mentions a theory about an “essence in the blood” during the scene where he and the asylum doctor are attempting a blood tranfusion on Lucy for the first time. I vaguely remember some anecdote about a goat being involved.

In the 1993(?) Coppola version, the only explanation proferred is in the one of the first scenes where we see van Helsing addressing students in an operating theatre. Here I vaguely remember some anecdote about syphilis.

In both Stoker’s Dracula and traditional vampire lore, religion plays a large part in the creation (and of course destruction) of vampires. We’re veering straight into mythology territory here, where science fears to tread. Vampires are created by defying God in some way. Stoker put forth the theory that Dracula was somehow the first vampire and became so by his immense wickedness during life and a refusal to die naturally. (The movie has some sort of reincarnation theme, I’m not sure why except for dramatic effect.) This is mentioned several times in the book, which Stoker cribbed straight from traditonal lore: he refers to Dracula as “forsaken”, and “a wanderer in the utter darkness”, terms usually reserved for Lucifer. The concept of vampires as demons in human form is one put forth by many cultures in folklore. Traditional Hungarian folklore says that a vampire is not actually connected in any way to who it was during life- the devil himself merely re-aimates the corpse of an evil-doer to wreck havoc among good Christians. So how does this relate to body temperature?

Well, if we’re going with the demon theory, we may have to consider vampires are cold to the touch. Demons are traditionally so described in both religious and secular lore beginning in the Middle Ages. Being cold seems to be a traditional signal of some supernatural weirdness going on. Ghosts are often said to cause a drop in temperature, corpses have cold skin, and vampires are re-animated corpses. Vampires are basically humans in badly screwed-up circumstances. Since human skin is pleasantly warm to the touch, and vampires are a sort of demonic inversion of humanity, it stands to reason they’d be cold.

But if we’re talking strict biological principles here, and barring the intercession of wizards :smiley: , I’m going to have to say that since vampires take in sustenance in the form of blood, they must be actively metabolizing that blood to create energy. Since they do not traditionally show adverse reactions to cold temperatures and seem to have rather boundless energy, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say they’re endothermic and are probably just as warm to the touch as a living human. If so, they’re going to encounter major problems in the areas of fluid retention. In order to stay hydrated and maintain sufficient energy levels, they’d have to suck quite a bit of blood. I’m going to say something like a good 30% of body weight per 24-hour cycle, based on outrageous guessing and taking extreme liberties with the known facts for vampire bats and extrapolating them out to a creature an average 6 feet in height and weighing 150 lbs. In fact, since the metabolic process would be speeded up due to quantity consumed and the more-or-less concentrated nature of their diet, it’s possible they may sustain a body temperature higher than that of normal humans- say, a core temperature close to 104 F. As far as excretion goes, they’d probably have very concentrated fluid urine to conserve water and fairly runny droppings- it’d be unavoidable on a liquid diet, and they would need to defecate pretty frequently. (Think small birds.)

Again, strict biology, a creature this large on this diet would be an impossibility. So I have to go with the wizard hypothesis. It’s the only one that makes any sense. :wink:

49

I’m partly with you, Ratty.

I’m going to use a lot of suspension of disbelief here, and only try to take a shot at it, with the internal twisted logic (for lack of better word) of the vampire lore.

A Vampire is a dead human, re-animated by the demon essence/soul/spirit. I doubt if you could re-animate just part of the human body. For me, it’s more like a zombie thing, where vampires are a subspecies. As told, time and time again, in movies, tv and books, vampires are ‘immortal’ because they’re already dead. The way to ‘kill’ a vampire, is by excorcising(sp?) the spirit that re-animates it, using a wooden stake, chopping off the head or whatever.

Angel could spend months at the bottom of the sea. Vampires that have been seemingly dead for hundred of years come out of a ‘coma’ with a drop of blood. Even though, in the JossVerse, the hearts of Vampires don’t beat, they really have to. The brain has to work, even if the demon spirit is in controll. To talk, and smoke, they need to breath, even if they don’t have to in order to survive. Angel often mentions his keen sense of smell, and that requires some respiratory function as well.
Spike adding weetabix to the blood for a crunchier snack, suggest that they enjoy eating.

Basically, I think the whole blood think is just an addiction had by the demon spirit. They’re ‘blood-a-holics’. When Angel or Spike drink pig’s blood (why not cow?), it only works as does a nicotine patch work for a heavy smoker; it keeps the beast in controll.

They don’t need blood for survival. In fact, they don’t need anything for survival, seeing that they are dead and re-animated. Some do enjoy buffalo wings, though.

50

The vampire peeing once a day and crappng once a week may be simply how they get rid of whatever food and drink they have to consume in front of people in order to keep them from getting suspicious.