The Book of Blood: From Legends and Leeches to Vampires and Veins

by Hp Newquist

  In addition, the skin on the bodies would have shriveled up, revealing longer fingernails, more hair, and a very gaunt appearance. (This skin shrinking is the real reason that hair and fingernails appear to continue to grow after death; in fact, they do not.) It appeared as if the dead had continued to grow even after they had died.

  During a plague, when the gravediggers returned to the mass grave to add new corpses, they were very likely to come across an unsettling sight. They would find that some of the older bodies appeared to have eaten through their shrouds and ingested blood. The gravediggers had never seen this actually happen; it must have occurred at night when they were asleep. Being superstitious, they believed that these “shroud eaters” had drunk blood in the dark of night and then returned to sleep in the grave so that no one would notice.

  The discovery of the woman in Venice is evidence that people were worried about her coming back from the dead as a vampire. It is quite probable that the brick was used to prevent her from using her teeth to feed on the living when she emerged from the grave.

  This finding helps establish the basis for much of the vampire legend, especially the parts about sleeping in graves and drinking blood from the living. But what about the notion that vampires must avoid sunlight? Some have tried to link it to a rare disease called porphyria. People born with this condition have difficulty producing hemoglobin properly, and thus have very pale skin and a sensitivity to bright sunlight. However, this is an extremely rare condition, and it is unlikely that there were enough sufferers to give rise to any legend.

  This part of the vampire myth was probably created by storytellers because no one ever saw a vampire during the day. Plus, the real vampires—bats—came out only at night. Giving human vampires the ability to turn into bats was the last step in creating one of the world’s most popular monsters.

  Bram Stoker’s Dracula was not the first vampire story, nor was it the last, but it certainly is the most famous. Over the last century, it has given rise to hundreds of movies, TV shows, Broadway musicals, and ever more books about vampires. It’s truly amazing when you think of some of the popular characters that are based on Dracula and his vampire relatives: A series of black-and-white movies made in the 1930s starring Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula that are still popular to this day. The TV shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood, and Dark Shadows. Anne Rice’s novels about the vampire Lestat. The Count, Sesame Street’s devilish master of numbers. Count Chocula, the mascot of a breakfast cereal that bears his name. The blood-spitting bat character played by Gene Simmons of the rock group Kiss. The Underworld movies. Edward Cullen and his family in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer.

  Dark Shadows was a popular daytime TV show in the 1960s.

  Actor Bela Lugosi became famous for playing the character of Count Dracula, the vampire.

  It is probably no surprise to learn that the vampire, in some form or other, has appeared in more movies than any other fictional character in history. It ties in with our own uneasy feelings about blood—something that people all over the world share.

  Video games, comic books, Halloween costumes, novels, theme-park attractions, and many other forms of popular entertainment all pay tribute to the bloodsucking ways of the vampire. These tributes are not all limited to entertainment; even the saliva of the vampire bat was named Draculin by scientists in honor of Bram Stoker’s title character.

  The image of the undead drinking blood is occasionally helped along by real-life figures. Notable among them was Elizabeth Bathory, a Hungarian countess who was born in 1560. Not long after her fiftieth birthday, Bathory was arrested and convicted for killing hundreds of young girls in her castle. No one is quite sure why she did this, but a legend arose that she bathed in the blood of these girls to keep her skin healthy and help her live longer. In an interesting coincidence, her family ruled Transylvania for many years.

  For centuries, the Maasai tribe of eastern Africa drank the blood of their cattle, usually mixed with milk, in order to add protein to their meals. They drink less of it today, as their diet has become more modern, but it is still an important part of their rituals such as celebrating a new birth. Though the Maasai never drank human blood, the idea that humans would drink any kind of blood is fascinating to most of the world.

  There is no doubt that vampire legends will continue for as long as humans are around. Some authors, such as Richard Matheson in I Am Legend, have even speculated that the end of the world will ultimately be a showdown between vampires and regular people.

  Countess Elizabeth Bathory was accused of bathing in the blood of young girls.

  All of this appeals to our interest in, as well as our fear of, blood. The more we learn about blood, though, the more we realize that it is nothing to be afraid of. That won’t stop us from getting scared, or feeling squeamish, at the thought of a monster out there in the night that wants our blood. But even something as incredible as blood can’t bring a human corpse back to life.

  CHAPTER 11

  Flowing, but Not Freely

  Despite all we know about blood, the one thing we haven’t figured out yet is how to make it. We can’t make it in a lab or create it using chemicals. The only source of human blood is the human body.

  Blood cannot be made in a lab; it has to be donated by people.

  This makes blood one of the most valuable substances on the planet. A pint of blood that is sold to hospitals can cost more than $200. With eight pints to the gallon, that comes to more than $1,600 per gallon. By comparison, the price of a gallon of gas in the United States over the last few decades has ranged from $1 to $5.

  The interesting thing is that the cost of gas reflects the money that oil companies have to spend drilling for it and refining it, along with transporting it to the gas station. Oil companies spend millions of dollars every year just trying to find new sources.

  On the other hand, guess what the cost of getting blood is. Nothing. It’s free.

  Donating blood doesn’t hurt at all and helps save lives.

  In most countries blood is donated by volunteers. Several countries, such as China, pay for blood, but most, including the United States, do not. They are concerned that people who desperately need money will give too much blood too often just for the money. There is also a feeling in many societies that blood is a gift that should be given freely because a person wants to, not because he or she is making money from it.

  Giving blood is a simple process that takes about fifteen minutes. It involves draining blood from a vein in your arm into an airtight plastic sack through a thin plastic tube. It is a relatively painless procedure, and about a pint is taken each time (donors have to wait several weeks before they can donate again, until the blood in their bodies is back to its normal quantity).

  Donating blood is a noble and selfless act because the blood can be used to help those who need it. This can be almost anyone you can think of: a pregnant mom giving birth, an athlete injured while playing football, a soldier who is wounded during battle, a policeman who is suffering from a bullet wound, a fireman burned while putting out a house fire, a child being treated in the hospital for a serious disease, or a grandfather who is having his hip replaced.

  American hospitals use about forty thousand units of blood every day.

  * * *

  RELIGION VERSUS. BLOOD

  Some religious groups, such as Jehovah's Witnesses, don't allow blood transfusions. It goes against their belief that “God will provide.” This is based on a strict following of biblical rules such as this one from Acts 15:28–29: "For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these essentials: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols and from blood.” Many interpret this to mean that humans are not to take blood from any source, including potentially lifesaving transfusions. These religious groups believe that should a patient die from blood loss, that simply means it is that person's turn to die, and this should be accepted.

  P
eople who do not want transfusions usually carry identification cards containing this information so that they are not accidentally given blood when they enter a hospital. When these individuals require surgery, doctors use special instruments to reduce blood loss during the operation.

  Thus, even in modern times, there is still a strong belief in the religious significance of blood, and some people think of it as something sacred that should not be tampered with—no matter what the circumstances.

  * * *

  The number of blood donations typically increases in the aftermath of a disaster, such as the New Orleans floods caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 or the massive earthquake that occurred in Haiti in 2010. The reality, however, is that a huge amount of blood is needed all year round, not just during catastrophes. Hospitals in the United States use a combined total of nearly forty thousand pints of blood each and every day. Fortunately, donors give about fifteen million pints of blood a year, but there is always a need for more.

  To keep a ready supply on hand, local hospitals and medical organizations called blood banks conduct blood drives, where they encourage people to come in and give a bit of their blood. Many adults regularly give to local blood banks, and they do it simply because this is a good thing to do and an easy way to help other people.

  Blood banks collect blood so that it can be processed and delivered to hospitals and laboratories.

  If blood is given for free, then how does it become so expensive by the time it gets to the hospital? The cost is due to all the steps that have to be taken in order to get the blood from a person’s arm to the places that want to use the blood. It’s not as simple as just forwarding the entire unit of blood from one place to another, because different parts of blood are used for different things. Many companies, laboratories, and medical facilities are involved in blood work, and they each charge a fee for their work.

  After blood is collected, it is separated into its various parts using a centrifuge, which spins blood quickly. The blood easily divides into red blood cells, white blood cells with platelets, and plasma.

  The RBCs are usually kept in local containers for use by hospitals, clinics, and paramedics. WBCs and platelets are used to provide extra strength to the blood of patients undergoing surgery. This is especially important for people who are cancer and burn victims; they need extremely high levels of the defensive and clotting abilities of white blood cells and platelets.

  Blood is necessary for testing new medicines before people can use them.

  Plasma is used for more things than RBCs and WBCs because of all the nutrients and chemicals it contains. Its clotting factors are needed for the treatment of hemophilia, its antibodies are used in the development of vaccines, and its albumin helps pharmaceutical companies create hormones and make various medicines more effective in the bloodstream.

  Each of the blood components is broken down to its purest form, which can be liquid, semisolid, or even freeze-dried powder (similar to concentrated drinks like Kool-Aid or powdered lemonade). The blood parts then have to be tested to ascertain that they don’t contain any diseases. During the 1980s, blood tainted with the virus that causes AIDS was accidentally given to hemophiliacs as part of their treatment for blood clotting, and more than half of these people contracted AIDS.

  Since then, there has been extremely tight control over how blood is collected, treated, and transfused. It has to be processed in special machines, it has to be stored in special containers so that it won’t be contaminated, and it has to be kept at the proper temperature so that it won’t spoil.

  All along the way, a dollar value is attached to blood because each stop requires that something be done to the blood, and each procedure costs money.

  By the time blood comes back to a hospital for use during surgeries or emergency treatments, the patients are charged for it. This charge is a few hundred dollars per unit (or pint). A person undergoing heart surgery may need several dozen units during the course of an operation.

  Hospitals are huge buyers of blood. So are research labs. Blood and its parts are critical to developing new medicines, and laboratories use blood to determine how it will react when it is exposed to different kinds of drugs.

  Another big buyer is the government. Blood supplies have to be sent with the military into battle to treat wounded soldiers. To meet that potential demand, governments need to increase their collections before soldiers go into battle so that the blood will be ready right away.

  Interestingly, warring nations can sometimes figure out when and where their enemies plan to fight by tracking their national blood drives. If a country is asking for more blood than usual, that means it might be getting ready for the injuries that always happen in battle.

  Despite how much blood donors give, there is always the need for more. Every day in the United States, tens of thousands of units of blood are used to help people. They all need to be replaced in order to help the next group of patients. Because of this demand, there have been numerous attempts to create artificial blood. Unfortunately, none has been very successful. Blood is just too complex and performs too many functions for scientists to create something new that does everything it can do.

  That leaves us wondering, what more can we learn about blood? Only in the last century have we learned that we have different blood types, how to transfuse it, and how it truly behaves in the body. One can only imagine what discoveries the next century holds.

  Over the course of this book, you’ve learned a great deal about what blood is and what it isn’t. You now know about hematophagous creatures and vampires and blood plasma and the circulatory system. Yet, you’ve just scratched the surface of all there is to know about blood. You’ll find—as any good scientist will tell you—that the more you explore, the more fascinating things you’ll uncover. And blood, which we all have, is one of the most fascinating and fabled substances in history.

  Hopefully, the next time you see blood, you’ll think of it as more than something red, scary, or gross. Perhaps you’ll see it as the red fluid that fills up each and every person on the planet ... and keeps all of us alive.

  Bibliography

  BOOKS

  In Search of Dracula: A True History of Dracula and Vampire Legends

  By Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu

  New English Library Ltd., published 1975

  Bloodletting Instruments in the National Museum of History and Technology

  By Audrey Davis and Toby Appel

  Gutenberg e-book #33102, published 2010

  www.gutenberg.org/files/33102/33102-h/33102-h.htm

  Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War

  By Barbara Ehrenreich

  Holt Paperbacks, published 1998

  Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce

  By Douglas Starr

  Knopf, published 1998

  Blood Groups and Red Cell Antigens

  By Laura Dean

  Published by National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), National Library

  of Medicine, and National Institutes

  of Health, 2005

  www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK2263

  WEBSITES

  The Merck Manuals Online Medical Library

  Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp., published 2010

  www.merckmanuals.com/home/index.html

  Red Gold

  Created by PBS/WNET 11

  www.pbs.org/wnet/redgold/index.html

  The Human Heart: An Online Exploration from

  the Franklin Institute

  www.fi.edu/learn/heart/blood/blood.html

  Animation of Human Heart Beating

  National Heart Lung and Blood Institute

  www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/hhw/hhw_pumping.html

  Blood Groups, Blood Types, and Blood Transfusions

  Presented by the Nobel Prize Organization

  nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/landsteiner/readmore.html

  Antique Bloodlettin
g & Leeching Instruments

  Medical Antiques.com

  Created by Douglas Arbittier

  medicalantiques.com/medical/Scarifications_and_Bleeder_Medical_Antiques.htm

  Photo Credits

  British Library: [>]

  Ethnologisches Museum Dahlem Berlin: [>]

  David Roberts: [>]

  The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library: [>]

  National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): [>]

  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: [>], [>]

  Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research: [>] (photo by Julian Gutt)

  Associates of Cape Cod, Inc.: [>] Matteo Borini: [>]

  Dan Curtis Productions, Inc./MPI home Video: [>]

  Acknowledgments

  It is said that no book is ever created without a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears. For this book, there was more blood than usual, but it was pretty much confined to the words on these pages. However, there were a lot of people whose work turned my words into, as they say, a real “flesh and blood” book. They include Ken Wright, my fearless (and not at all bloodthirsty) agent; Kate O’Sullivan, my editor at HMH, whose guiding hand made this book a bloody good read; and the entire team at HMH, who went through much bloodletting to create the pages you have in front of you.