In the early 1730s, a band of Austrian medical officers were summoned to the Serbian village of Medvegia. An investigation was underway concerning the strange deaths of several villagers. The locals claimed the deaths were caused by vampires. The first of these vampires was Arnold Paole, a man who had died several years earlier by falling off a hay wagon.

To see the world from another point of view,
How will you see it?
When it comes down to one thing,
How will you leave us?
With the callus laughter,
Seen in the drunken picture I took of you?
Or in another time,
Another world?
Could you look back on your life,
And know that you were only human?
No metaphors,
No similes.... Just you?
Or will you exaggerate it like I do,
And make you into a hero....
Could you see life and the world as it is around you?
Or be brazen about it, and dive head on...

removed as per the request of the Author

January 10, 2003 (The Chicago Sun-Times) - An experimental clot-busting drug that someday might limit damage from strokes is derived from a most unusual source-- vampire bats. The drug might lengthen the three-hour treatment window that limits the effectiveness of the only approved drug in use, according to a study published today in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Xeroderma Pigmentosum: Many diseases have been linked -- usually incorrectly -- to folkloric vampirism, and here is yet another one. One question answered by the following was, "Is xeroderma pigmentosum like albinism?"