Chemistry catches up with the myth of vampires

摘要

It is always interesting to speculate on the origin of a folkloric tale, especially one that is as widespread as that of the blood sucking creature of the night known as the vampire. Many societies have tales of the undead who come back from the great beyond to torment the living, but our image of the vampire is generally based on Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Bram Stoker’s sanguinary count. Dracula had a pale complexion, was sensitive to sunlight, feared garlic, and had to sustain himself by drinking human blood, preferably tapping into a victim’s neck. In 1985, University of British Columbia’s David Dolphin, who was to become one of Canada’s top chemists, mused that perhaps the legend of the vampire could be traced to people suffering from porphyria, a condition where an individual’s skin and nervous system can be compromised by a build-up of organic compounds called porphyrins.