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Now for some real vampires

By chrisdrudge on August 24, 2008.

Check out this article, which does a nice job of summarizing what clinical vampirism is all about. Honestly, all I cared about were the nasty-ass case reports. Highlights include the dude who liked to jerk off to the sight of his own blood and had managed to figure out how to cut himself so as to cause blood to spurt into his mouth, and the pregnant woman who was hospitalized on multiple occasions for vomiting large quantities of her own blood, which she ingested via cuts she made in the base of her tongue. I've managed to find a couple of other publications of interest.

Hemphill RE, Zabow T. Clinical vampirism. A presentation of 3 cases and a re-evaluation of Haigh, the 'acid-bath murderer'. S Afr Med J. 1983 Feb 19;63(8):278-81.

John Haigh was a fellow from England who in the late 1940s killed at least six people, drank their blood, and then dissolved their bodies in drums of concentrated sulphuric acid. If you give it enough time, it works. You just have to watch out for incriminating things like dentures and steel plates.

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Halevy A, Levi Y, Shnaker A, Orda R. Auto-vampirism--an unusual cause of anaemia.
J R Soc Med. 1989 Oct;82(10):630-1.

Dude just wanted a break from jail, and figured out that making himself sick by ingesting his own blood was a good way to get to the relative luxury of a hospital room. Based on an accidental viewing of Fear Factor, I suppose that drinking a glass of your own blood wouldn't be all that bad. You'd just have to chug it and hopefully have something to chase it with.

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Jensen HM, Poulsen HD. Auto-vampirism in schizophrenia. Nord J Psychiatry. 2002;56(1):47-8.

People may also drink their own blood because Zuul/Big Bird/Jesus/the CIA commands them to.

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General Ickiness

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While i fully respect that blood fixations are a serious subset of psychiatric illness, and criminal behaviour, isn't it a bit cliched and incredibly passe to blame such pathologies on D&D and role playing games in general?

Isn't it possible that the condition existed long before the fictionalisation occurred? And that the books and games are based on the legends, which are themselves based on the diseases?

Except for that amazing lack of judgement on the writer's part, i very much enjoyed the article (the first article linked, in case i'm not being clear). Unfortunately, that gaffe stole the credibility from the remainder of the piece, for me.

I'm not surprised she blamed D&D and made a big deal out of Hot Topic-esque goth journals.

She's from South Carolina. When my sister lived down there, some preacher convinced her that My Little Pony was satanic, with each color pony having a different satanic significance.