Vampires

From TinWiki.org

Vampires are mythical creatures that have been around for thousands of years. They are thought to rise from the dead night and suck the blood of the living. There are a large variety of them from red eyed monsters with green or pink hair in China to the Greek Lamia, which has the upper body of a woman and the lower body of a winged serpent. From vampire foxes in Japan to a head with trailing entrails known as the Penanggalang in Malaysia.

1 History
2 Origins
3 Porphyria
4 People from history
5 External Links
6 Relevent Discusion Threads

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History

The vampires we are familiar with today originated mainly from Eastern European myths, and have been greatly mutated by fiction and film. The myths originated in the Far East and were transported through places like china, Tibet and India by the travelers in their trade caravans along the silk route to the Mediterranean. From there they spread to the Black Sea, Greece, the Balkans and of course the Carpathian Mountains, including Hungary and Transylvania. They were also thought to be able to Shape-Shift into bats as well as being able to control other animals it was also thought that they could change in to mist.

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Origins

The character of the vampire originated from observing unusual behavior in murder suspects who were unstable or ill. It is thought that an outbreak of rabies was to blame for many of the stories as the symptoms of the disease echo the early vampire myths.

The popularity of the vampire can be better traced to a love/hate relationship civilization has with its rulers. It's a desire to be a part of the 5% of society (princes, politicians, lawyers, landlords, rock stars, etc...) which lavishly and effortlessly feeds off the sweat of the masses, coupled with a populist desire to drive a stake through the heart of that same 5%.

More on Origins

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Porphyria

This is a relatively unknown disease was proposed to have an association with vampirism by David Dolphin. He is a Canadian biochemist who purported that ingesting blood helps porphyrics with the very rare porphyria subtypes that have some similarities to vampire characteristics.

Porphyria, is a blood disorder where one of the eight steps in the production of heme (the pigment that makes blood red) produces 50% or less of the enzyme that is required for each of the required heme producing process. There is a specific enzyme at each of the eight steps, with seven of the eight steps having a porphyria associated with it.

There are a total of eight types of porphyria, with the types generally split between acute and cutaneous manifestations. Four acute types benefit from heme treatments when acute attacks occur. This includes AIP (acute intermittent porphyria), ALAD, HCP (hereditary copropophyria), and VP (variegate porphyria). Of these types, only HCP and VP exhibit laboratory results of being photosensitive, but not all sufferers exhibit clinical signs or symptoms UV sensitivity. Even though HCP and VP have may have both acute and cutaneous symptoms, they are classified as acute to assure proper treatment of possible life threatening neurologic attacks.

Six of the eight types have some level of UV sensitivity, including CEP (congenital erythropoietic porphyria), PCT (porphyria cutanea tarda), HCP, HEP (hepatoerythropoietic porphyria), and VP. The two types that exhibit severe scarring and immediate and severe pain upon minimal exposure to UV light are CEP and HEP. Both types generally appear during infancy or childhood. Blood transfusions may help to reduce the porphyrin build up in CEP, plus it helps to relieve the anemia that develops in CEP. Even though suffers of CEP can benefit from blood infusion, those with CEP do not crave blood, nor would they benefit from ingesting it. Once blood enters the stomach, the enzymes in the stomach breaks the blood down, including the heme portion of the blood. As a result, the broken down components are not able to supplement the body's production of heme.

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People from history

There are three known individuals from history who are sometimes described in the context of vampires. These three all had a lust for blood, death and destruction,

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