Ironworks Gaming Forum - Origins and scientific proofs of vampires and werewolves...

By: Neil Osterweil
Reviewed By: Michael Smith, MD
WebMD Feature

Consider, for example, this description of the title character of Bram Stoker's Dracula:

"His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth ... was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years ... The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor."

The bloodthirsty Count's physical features could have been caused, say some researchers, by a rare but very real disease. It's called porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT). PCT is the most common form of a genetic disease that results in abnormal pigments. And what part of your body needs these pigments? Your blood, of course -- specifically hemoglobin, the oxygen-carrying part of red blood cells.

People with PCT have skin that discolors and develops rashes and blisters when exposed to light. Those with more severe forms of the disease may have excessive hair growth on their face and hands (Dracula had hairs in the centers of his palms), gum degeneration (causing the teeth to appear large and protruding), and brain disorders. Some chemicals, including those found in garlic (a bane to vampires) can make their symptoms worse. Sometimes a person with PCT doesn't have enough red cells -- and needs repeated transfusions of blood.

"These symptoms, disease management strategies, and treatments are clearly reminiscent of characteristics typically associated with vampires and werewolves, and it is widely assumed that folkloric reports of such beasts may, in fact, be based on the suffering of unfortunate individuals afflicted with porphyria," writes plant geneticist Crispin B. Taylor, in the journal Plant Cell.

Nor are vampires the only reality-based specters that still haunt our imaginations. Werewolves really exist -- or at least they do in the minds of people with the rare psychiatric disorder known as lycanthropy.

In the March 2000 issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, J. Arturo Silva, MD and Gregory B. Leong, MD describe the case of "Mr. A" who suffered from a case of partial lycanthropy -- the delusion that one is being transformed into a wolf.

"Mr. A is a 46-year-old male who experienced delusional episodes that lasted up to several hours. During these episodes, he had sensations of hair growth on his face, trunk, and arms. Occasionally, he became convinced that the hair growth was real. He also complained that he experienced structural facial malformations and lesions that took place within minutes and remained for hours. He thought these changes would make him appear to be a wolf, and avoided seeing his face or body whenever possible. However, he did not believe that he was a wolf. He denied that his mind was changing into a different mind or that he was a different person from his objective self."

Silva, who is a staff psychiatrist at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Palo Alto, Calif., tells WebMD that lycanthropy, "can be due to a hysteria or a psychosis -- in other words madness -- or it can be due to other kinds of illnesses, such as depression associated with a lot of self-deprecating thoughts. But often, once you start getting into a real belief system where somebody says 'I think I'm turning into a werewolf,' and he looks at his body and his hair, and the shape of his face changing -- once you get to that level it usually is a clear loss of contact with reality."

Silva says that lycanthropy is uncommon today -- probably because we've killed or banished most of the wolves to the remote wilderness and thus no longer live among them. However, people in other cultures in other parts of the world suffer from similar delusions, involving other types of animals, such as crocodiles or eagles.

Such transformations may seem to be the stuff of fantasy, but they still occur every year. If you don't believe it, just open your door this Halloween.

Originally published Oct. 29, 2001.
Medically reviewed Oct. 16, 2002.