Vampires, the contagion of the undead
The belief in the existence of vampires has its roots in the mists of time. Over the centuries, the figure of the vampire has changed profoundly to the point of assuming a romantic and aristocratic aura given to it above all by numerous 19th-century writers such as Bram Stoker, author of the famous Dracula. In 1732, an army doctor, Johannes Fluckinger, went to Medvegia , a country in the former Yugoslavia, to investigate some assassinations attributed to vampires. The locals told him about a certain Arnold Paole who claimed to be tormented by a vampire, to have got soiled with blood, and to have eaten some earth from his grave to get rid of it. When Paole died and was buried, people began to complain of being persecuted and there were four deaths. Forty days after his death, the body was exhumed and it was found that fresh blood flowed from the eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. The skin and nails had fallen out, but they were growing back. Fluckinger reported that deducing that it was a vam...