Kelsey Bennett
Mrs. Gill
English 9
15 December 2014
Vampires: Real or Fake
Do you believe in vampires? Many people believe vampires are real. There are two medical conditions, Porphyria and Psychic Vampirism, that resemble the fictitious characters.
It is thought that King George III had porphyria and not have gone mad like popular belief (Dayan, Franck E. and Dayan, Emilie A.). Other famous people are thought to have porphyria like Vlad Tepes a.k.a Dracula (Dayan, Franck E. and Dayan, Emilie A.).
Porphyria is a very interesting medical condition, like sun poisoning it can cause lesions on your skin (Appell, David). Porphyria is a condition when an organism (does not have to be a human) is allergic in a sense to visible light, the light you can see (Appell, David). Porphyria can cause strokes and heart attacks if someone with the condition is left in the sun to long, this also depends on the severity of the disease (Appell, David). There are suits made for porphyrins which are based on suits that protect astronauts in outer space (Appell, David). The is no cure for porphyria and it is passed down by genetics (Appell, David). Some skeptics believe that King George's porphyria, the cause of him going mad, was the cause of the Revolutionary War (Appell, David). Porphyrins exposed to too much light can suffer from withered fingers and lips, reddish gums that are tightened revealing fang like teeth (Appell, David). We have all heard of Dracula, but do we all know the stories origin?
Bram Stoker's Dracula was inspired by the life of Vlad III or Vlad Tapes (Dayan, Franck E. and Dayan, Emilie A.). Vlad was the Prince of Wallachia and was a Night of the order of the Dragon (Dayan, Franck E. and Dayan, Emilie A.). He was extremely cruel and that does not even describe it well enough (Dayan, Franck E. and Dayan, Emilie A.). “He condemned people to death using a myriad of gruesome methods such as skinning, decapitation, hacking, strangulation, hanging, boiling and...
