Every now and again, the insatiable desire to explain the supernatural turns science and the paranormal into strange bedfellows. Modern medicine allows doctors and scientists to play the game of pin-the-condition-on-the-monster but since vampire and werewolf test subjects are hard to come by, their speculation is solely based on finding parallel symptoms between folklore legends and modern disease definitions.
Vampires, in particular, are a popular target for scientific deconstruction. Some suggest that the vampire folklore may have arisen out of a hereditary blood disease called porphyria.
According to UW-Madison biochemistry professor Michael Cox, 'porphyria is involved with defect(s) in one or more enzymes involved in the synthesis of porphyrin... the 'heme' in hemoglobin.' Heme molecules transport oxygen molecules around the body. Without them, Cox asserted, you're in trouble.
Cox explained that if a specific enzyme involved in heme production is 'knocked out,' it causes an accumulation of incomplete heme molecules, which 'causes the teeth to [glow] in ultraviolet light and makes the skin abnormally sensitive to sunlight.'
'[There is] speculation that these conditions may have given rise to the vampire legend, but its not at all clear that's true,' Cox stressed.
According to the American Porphyria Foundation, there are eight types of the rare disease. All but two forms result in a victim having sun-sensitive skin, but the most rare form, Gunther's disease (also known as congenital erythropoietic porphyria), has the most vampire-centric symptoms.
British biochemist Nick Lane stated in a 2003 Scientific American article that even mild sun exposure can lead to a facial disfigurement that leaves the Gunthers victim with red, fang-like incisors and 'a patchwork of scars, dense pigmentation and deathly pale hues' on their skin.
And while modern medicine treats porphyria patients with heme injections, some historians posit that, during the dark ages, the disease's victims may have drank blood to get those heme molecules they sorely needed, thus alleviating their condition.
It's not hard to see why Gunther's disease has been linked to vampirism, but the speculation doesn't end there. According to the APF, increased hair growth is also a symptom of the disease. To the uneducated, superstitious dark-age era European, the sight of a night-dwelling, shaggy porphyria sufferer, pointed teeth aglow, may have kick-started the werewolf legend.
Besides porphyria, other werewolf diagnoses include Lycanthropy and a condition known as Congenital Hypertrichosis Universalis, sometimes referred to as human werewolf syndrome.
Clinical Lycanthropy, as defined by a study done at the McLean Hospital, is a psychological condition where the victim believes they have transformed into an animal and, depending on the critter, act accordingly.
Only a minority of the cases in a 2004 study on Lycanthropy involved perceived wolf shape-shifting'birds, frogs and even bees have also been the focus of a Lycanthrope's hallucinations.
A CHU victim's symptoms are more straightforward and less debilitating'they're just hairy people, covered from head to toe with a thick coat, even on their faces. All 32 members of the widely publicized Aceves family of Zacatecas, Mexico have the disease, with Manuel Diaz-Acevez and his niece and nephew performing in a traveling circus as 'the wolf people.'
Because of the lack of historical evidence, all this paranormal speculation, at its best, becomes interesting guesswork.
Nevertheless, we humans are speculative buggers and we will likely continue to come up with new diagnoses for the Monster Mash set. Speculating ain't science'but it sure is fun.
Adam Dylewski is a junior majoring in genetics and turns into a spider monkey each Halloween, though studies have shown he may just be inebriated, loud and surprisingly acrobatic. Send those letters to adylewski@wisc.edu.
