Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Dracula

  • Blood is the life

    Saameer Pani Sydney, Australia Vampire—the very word itself conjures up images of supernatural creatures who look not unlike you and me, prowl about at night, prey on unsuspecting souls, and sink their fangs into innumerable, hapless victims to quench their thirst for blood. Monstrous but beautiful, repulsive yet magnetic, vampires have fascinated us for centuries…

  • The smartest vampire story

    Alice TheibaultRochester, New York, United States There is something uniquely terrifying about vampires. The concept of a nocturnal creature showing up at one’s home to suck their blood is enough to make just about anyone uneasy, and so vampires have been mined as a horror device for generations. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is arguably the…

  • The past and future of blood banking

    Eva Kitri Mutch StoddartSaigon, Vietnam Blood oozes allure. The elixir of life, viscous and dramatic scarlet, courses through the veins of every living human. Blood has been viewed as sacred for centuries. Aristocrats used to sip at it to stoke their youth and vitality. Bram Stoker’s quintessential vampire novel, the revered Dracula, was published in…

  • Vampires and the Tuberculous Family

    Sylvia PamboukianMoon Township, PA An isolated village, a series of mysterious deaths, a mob in the graveyard at midnight—it sounds like the climax of a thrilling vampire story. However, these events occurred in 1892 Rhode Island at the gravesite of tuberculosis victim Mercy Brown five years prior to the publication of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897).…

  • Taking the bat out of Hell

    Tajri Salek Birmingham, UK   Fig. 1 The Destruction of Job’s Sons, from Illustrations of the Book of Job, 1825–26. Engraving by William Blake. Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Copyright: Public Domain, Universal (CC0 1.0). “Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!” ― Bram Stoker, Dracula   If you…

  • Consumption and vampires: Metaphor and myth before science

    Gregory Rutecki Cleveland, Ohio, United States   Illustrations of vampires. Provided by author.     “In New England . . . It is believed that consumption is not a physical but a spiritual disease . . . as long as the body of a dead consumptive relative has blood in its heart it is proof…