Clinical vampirism, more commonly known as Renfield’s syndrome, is an obsession with drinking blood. The earliest presentation of clinical vampirism in psychiatric literature was a psychoanalytic interpretation of two cases, contributed by Richard L. Vanden Bergh and John. F. Kelley.

As the authors point out, over 50,000 people addicted to drinking blood have appeared in the psychiatric literature from 1892 to 2010.

The syndrome is named after R. M. Renfield, Dracula‘s human zoophagous follower in the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker.

Clinical vampirism before Renfield’s syndrome

The prior diagnosis of clinical vampirism was somewhat different from Renfield’s syndrome. Clinical vampirism usually connotated an erotic obsession with blood; Renfield’s syndrome more resembles an eating disorder involving the consumption of blood and/or living animals.

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Haematomania The condition of craving blood for energy, also known as Haematomania, is real.

Mercy Brown vampire incident

The Mercy Brown vampire incident occurred in Rhode Island, US, in 1892. It is one of the best documented cases of the exhumation of a corpse in order to perform rituals to banish an undead manifestation. The incident was part of the wider New England vampire panic.

Several cases of consumption (tuberculosis) occurred in the family of George and Mary Brown in Exeter, Rhode Island. Friends and neighbors believed that this was due to the influence of the undead. An attempt was made to remediate. Mercy Brown died January 1892 aged 19

In Exeter, Rhode Island, several members of George and Mary Brown’s family suffered a sequence of tuberculosis infections in the final two decades of the 19th century.
Tuberculosis was called “consumption” at the time, and was a devastating and much-feared disease.

The mother, Mary Eliza, was the first to die of the disease, followed in 1884 by their eldest daughter, Mary Olive, according to her grave stone. In 1891, daughter Mercy and son Edwin also contracted the disease.

Friends and neighbors of the family believed that one of the dead family members was a vampire, although they did not use that name, and had caused Edwin’s illness.
This was in accordance with threads of contemporary folklore, which linked multiple deaths in one family to undead activity. Consumption was a poorly understood condition at the time and the subject of much superstition.

George Brown was persuaded to give permission to exhume several bodies of his family members. Villagers, the local doctor, and a newspaper reporter exhumed the bodies on March 17, 1892.
The bodies of both Mary and Mary Olive exhibited the expected level of decomposition, so they were thought not to be the cause.
However, the corpse of a daughter, Mercy, exhibited almost no decomposition, and still had blood in the heart.
This was taken as a sign that the young woman was undead and the agent of young Edwin’s condition. Her lack of decomposition was more likely due to her body being stored in freezer-like conditions in an above-ground crypt during the two months following her death.

As superstition dictated, Mercy’s heart and liver were burned, and the ashes were mixed with water to create a tonic and was given to the sick Edwin to drink, as an effort to resolve his illness and stop the influence of the undead. The young man died two months later.

What remained of Mercy’s body was buried in the cemetery of the Baptist Church in Exeter after being desecrated.

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Peter Plogojowitz /Petar Blagojević

Petar Blagojević died 1725 was a Serbian peasant who was believed to have become a vampire after his death and to have killed nine of his fellow villagers. The case was the earliest, one of the most sensational and most well documented cases of vampire hysteria.

Blagojević died in 1725, and his death was followed by a spate of other sudden deaths (after very short maladies, reportedly of about 24 hours each). Within eight days, nine people perished. On their death-beds, the victims allegedly claimed to have been throttled by Blagojević at night.

The villagers decided to disinter the body and examine it for signs of vampirism, such as growing hair, beard and nails, and the absence of decomposition.

Together with the Veliko Gradište priest, he viewed the already exhumed body and was astonished to find that the characteristics associated with vampires in local belief were indeed present. The body was undecomposed, the hair and beard were grown, there were “new skin and nails” (while the old ones had peeled away), and blood could be seen in the mouth.

After that, the people, who “grew more outraged than distressed”, proceeded to stake the body through the heart, which caused a great amount of “completely fresh” blood to flow through the ears and mouth of the corpse. Finally, the body was burned.

The report on this event was among the first documented testimonies about vampire beliefs in Eastern Europe. It was published by Wienerisches Diarium, a Viennese newspaper, today known as Die Wiener Zeitung. Along with the report of the very similar Arnold Paole case of 1726-1732, it was widely translated West and North, contributing to the vampire craze of the eighteenth century in Germany, France and England

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Arnold Paole

Arnold Paole died c. 1726 was a Serbian hajduk who was believed to have become a vampire after his death, initiating an epidemic of supposed vampirism that killed at least 16 people in his native village of Meduegna

Paole’s case, similar to that of Petar Blagojevich, became famous because of the direct involvement of the Austrian authorities and the documentation by Austrian physicians and officers, who confirmed the reality of vampires.

The report and its significance for the subsequent eighteenth century vampire controversy are now explained by the then poor understanding of the process of corpse decomposition

Arnold Paole was a hajduk who had moved to the village from the Turkish-controlled part of Serbia. He reportedly often mentioned that he had been plagued by a vampire at a location named Gossowa (perhaps Kosovo), but that he had cured himself by eating soil from the vampire’s grave and smearing himself with his blood.

The First Outbreak

About 1725, he broke his neck in a fall from a haywagon. Within 20 or 30 days after Paole’s death, four people complained that they had been plagued by him. These people all died shortly thereafter.

The Second Outbreak

About five years later, in the winter of 1731, a new epidemic occurred, with more than ten people dying within several weeks, some of them in just two or three days without any previous illness and others after 3 days of languishing.

The commission established that, while five of the corpses were decomposed, the remaining twelve were “quite complete and undecayed” and exhibited the traits that were commonly associated with vampirism.

Their chests and in some cases other organs were filled with fresh (rather than coagulated) blood; the viscera were estimated to be “in good condition”; various corpses looked plump and their skin had a “red and vivid” (rather than pale) colour; and in several cases, “the skin on … hands and feet, along with the old nails, fell away on their own, but on the other hand completely new nails were evident, along with a fresh and vivid skin”.

In the case of Milica, the hajduks who witnessed the dissection were very surprised at her plumpness, stating that they had known her well, from her youth, and that she had always been very “lean and dried-up”; it was only in the grave she had attained this plumpness.

The surgeons summarized all these phenomena by stating that the bodies were in “vampiric condition” (Vampyrenstand).

After the examination had been completed, the Gypsies cut off the heads of the supposed vampires and burned both their heads and their bodies, the ashes being thrown in the West Morava river. The decomposed bodies were laid back into their graves.

The report is dated 26 January 1732, Belgrade, and bears the signatures of the five officers involved.

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“Vampire Grave” in Bulgaria Holds a Skeleton With a Stake Through Its Heart

Archeologists in Bulgaria haved uncovered a 13th century staked “vampire” at Perperikon, an ancient Thracian site in the south of the country, Archaeology reports. The remains once belonged to a man who was likely in his 40s. An iron rod had been hammered through his chest “to keep the corpse from rising from the dead and disturbing the living,” Archaeology continues, and his left leg had also been removed and placed beside the corpse.

Clearly, this man’s neighbors did not trust his remains to stay put.

Amongst the Romani, anyone who was missing a finger, had an appendage similar to those of an animal or had a horrible appearance was regarded as “one who is dead,” while in Russia, those who talked to themselves were suspected of having a vampire nature.

Fire could kill these creatures while they walked at night, and iron stakes through the heart of a corpse could prevent it from returning from the grave as a vampire. Persons born on Saturday were thought to have a special talent as vampire hunters, too. Vampire hysteria commonly took hold of Slavic villages, with corpse-stakings occurring frequently. Around the region, archeologists have unearthed over 100 graves in which remains have been pinned down with such vampire-deterring methods.

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The Vampire Of Sozopol

The “vampire” skeleton that was recently discovered by archaeologists in a grave in Bulgaria’s Black Sea town of Sozopol has been identified as a pirate and mayor.

According to Bulgarian archaeologists and historians, the skeleton, which was said to be a vampire because it was found buried with an iron spike thrust into his chest, most likely belonged to a noble named Krivich who lived in the 14th century.

The vampire from Sozopol most likely was called Krivich, and was a pirate. And he certainly wasn’t a vampire when he was alive. It is just that the people were afraid that he might become one after his death

He must have been a bad man. A very bad man. So according to the beliefs in the Middle Ages his soul couldn’t go to heaven. It was to remain in the body, suffer, and sometimes would rise from the grave to drink blood from animals or humans. That is why the soul had to be killed symbolically with a sharp spike but not a weapon,” Dimitrov explained.

In addition to being an evil man, the Sozopol “vampire” was also a member of the local nobility because otherwise he would not have been buried next to a church where his grave was found.

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Polish Vampires

Archaeologists in Poland believe they’ve made a startling discovery: a group of vampire graves.

The graves were discovered during the construction of a roadway near the Polish town of Gliwice, where archaeologists are more accustomed to finding the remains of World War II soldiers.
But instead of soldiers, the graves contained skeletons whose heads had been severed and placed on their legs. This indicated to the archaeologists that the bodies had been subject to a ritualized execution designed to ensure the dead stayed dead.

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Sumerian Vampire

Akhkhazu is a female demon from the Akkadic mythology. Her Sumerian name is Dimme-kur. She is also called “the seizer”.

She brings fever and plagues and is a member of a trio of female demons (Labasu, Labartu, Akhkhazu)

In the language of the ancient Sumerians, thisis the word that is used when referring to a vampiric spirit during magical ceremonies or practices. This creature, which feeds exclusively on human blood, is summoned into this plane of existence through a rather simplistic magical ceremony. As soon as the akhkharu arrives in our dimension, the creature immediately begins seeking out prey. If it can consume enough human blood, it will become human itself.

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The myth of the bloodsucking vampire has stalked humans from ancient Mesopotamia to 18th-century Eastern Europe, but it has differed in the terrifying details. So, how did we arrive at the popular image we know, love and fear today? And what truly makes a vampire…a vampire? Michael Molina digs up the science and the superstition.