The following text is obtained from the book:
The Dracula Scrapbook by Peter Haining
Longmeadow Press
ISBN: 0-681-41643-2
by Dr. David H. Dolphin
An explanation for the vampire's habits and bloodthirsty compulsions as immortalized in Bram Stoker's novel Dracula has been advanced by Dr. David H. Dolphin, a Canadian biochemist working at the University of British Columbia. His extensive research into the controversial subject was made public in a paper he delivered before the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Los Angeles in May 1985.
Dr. Dolphin's pronouncements generated widespread publicity and caused one Washingtom correspondent, Alex Brummer, to declare, "The scoffers who chortled their way through hundreds of late-night vampire films may soon be hanging garlic around their necks and praying for daybreak. For new research suggests that the horrific folklore figure that has laced literature and culture since the Middle Ages may, in fact, have suffered from a rare genetic disease."
In his paper, Dr. Dolphin advanced his theory that vampires are actually men or women who suffer from one of a class of incurable hereditary diseases known as the porphyrias -- of which there are at least eight. At the core of porphyria is a deficiency of haeme, the red blood pigment produced in the liver which helps to carry oxygen in haemoglobin.
As a result of this malfunction in the body chemicals, said Dr. Dolphin, sufferers became afflicted with precisely the same symptoms that troubled the "Children of the Night," as the vampires of literature are generally known. Their bodies became grotesquely disfigured and they evidenced extreme sensitivity to any form of light.
Even mild exposure to ordinary sunlight caused victims to run the risk of having their skin disfigured by sores and scars. Sometimes, the nose and fingers would actually fall off, and a victim's hands could come to resemble an animal's paws. Lips and gums would also become so stretched and tightened that the teeth -- though no larger than those of ordinary people -- would stick out, giving the appearance of fearful, animal-like fangs.
It was because of this, said Dr. Dolphin, that victims of the disease would only venture out at night. They might also grow all their body hair long as a protection against the light. And -- most controversially of all -- he argued that porphyria victims in the past instinctively sought the haeme their bodies needed, but could not make themselves, by biting and sucking the blood of others.
Today, with one in 200,000 people suffering from this disease, one form of treatment used is the injection of haeme. In the Middle Ages, however, less travel and more inbreeding might have led to porphyria becoming concentrated in certain areas -- and with it the development of the vampire legend.
The biochemist also offered an explanation for the universal belief that once a victim had been bitten by a vampire he or she was similarly smitten with the blood-lust. The reason for this was that brothers and sisters of the vampire might have shared the same defective genes, and while the symptoms generally lay dormant, the shock of the bite from an open carrier of the disease may have released the vampire characteristics in the sibling.
Stressful events were very much the key to this occurring, said Dr. Dolphin, and anyone who lost a lot of blood would certainly be under considerable stress. He supported this assertion by citing the now established fact that porphyria attacks can be triggered by alcohol or drugs.
The popular method used by people to defend themselves against the attacks of vampires by utilizing garlic was also explainable by logic. For the plant contains diakyl disulphide, which is very similar to the chemicals that are now known to severely aggravate the symptoms of porphyria by destroying a haeme protein called P450.
This would be reason enough for anyone suffering from vampirism to avoid the malodorous root, said Dr. Dolphin. He would not, however, speculate on the efficiency of using silver bullets or crucifixes to achieve the same ends!
The biochemist admitted that he could not refute the evidence that haeme could not, apparently, pass through the stomach wall into the blood stream when drunk through the mouth -- although he did claim that cattle's blood was drunk in modern Transylvania to combat porphyria symptoms.
The subject of vampires was one enshrined in myth and legend, Dr. Dolphin concluded, and although he hoped his work had thrown up some new ideas, there was still much work to be done on the mystery of the terrible night creature and his "kiss of undeath."
The Straight Dope: Did vampires suffer from the disease porphyria -- or not?