Medical Vampires

Abstract

The only two mammals to remove blood regularly from other mammals are vampire bats (subfamily, Desmodontinae) and humans. Vampires, dead people who rise from their graves at night to nourish themselves on the blood of the living (that is, Dracula and his ilk), are to be found only in movies and in Eastern European folklore. Werewolves, demonized people who, according to legend, take the form of wolves, are less fastidious about their source of nourishment; any part of the body will do. Vampire bats live exclusively on the blood of other animals. They obtain the blood painlessly by scooping out… © 1986, Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved.