What is vampirism?

The dictionary definition is that it refers to the habits and characteristics of vampires.

We might think that that means rising from the dead to prowl through the night while wrapped in a voluminous black cloak, and possessing long, sharp canine teeth with which to bite the necks of victims and suck their blood.

But modern vampires are less likely to be found in graveyards than in books and films such as the Twilight series, or in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

When the term first emerged, though, things were rather different.

Vampires were first discovered in the early 18th Century at the borders of Austria-Hungary.

Reports of witches, ghosts, and various demons sucking human blood go back to earliest times, but it was not until 1725 that vampires first appeared, in a report written by an army medical officer on the activities of Serbian soldiers.

Over the course of eight days in that year in the village of Kisilova, nine people had been strangled and then had their blood sucked.

The man believed responsible had been dead and buried for ten weeks, but he had apparently risen from the grave to do so.

The soldiers dug up his corpse and found it to be quite fresh with blood in its mouth.

They drove a stake through his heart, and cremated the body.

It was the first reported case of vampirism.

A newspaper in Vienna carried the report, and the phenomenon spread.

Within a few years, vampirism seemed to be rife in Eastern Europe.

The Emperor sent teams of military surgeons to investigate and perform autopsies, and they found that the cases were remarkably consistent.

Dozens of articles and books were published on the subject by medical researchers, and vampires became a hot topic of debate in the Enlightenment.

Vampirism was a recognised condition attested by large numbers of witnesses and had characteristic signs and symptoms, such as corpses having fresh blood running through their veins.

Some researchers put the appearances down to mass trauma and delusion.

Some to diet or accidental drug use causing hallucinations.

Some to unusual chemicals in the earth affecting decomposition.

Some to highly contagious diseases.

Others, however, argued that the phenomenon really was rampant and needed to be dealt with by the authorities.

Theologians joined the fray, arguing that vampires were physical beings that proved the existence of an afterlife.

Philosophers meanwhile were concerned as the widespread evidence supporting the existence of vampires cast the whole value of testimony and eyewitness verification into doubt.

Having begun among Serbian villagers, vampirism now spread through European society as a way to describe politicians, landlords, businessman, and even theatre critics--it was as if vampires were moving up the social scale.

It was not until a century had passed that the aspiring writer Dr. John Polidori wrote the first vampire tale in English.

He made the vampire an aristocrat, and paved the way for Bram Stoker's classic novel Dracula, published 78 years later.

It is to Polidori and Stoker, and dozens of Victorian vampire tales, that we owe the fanged and stylish creature familiar to us today.

But remember that vampirism was first investigated by doctors, government officials, and philosophers.

It therefore has much to teach us about what it is--and is not--to be human.

About how far we are simply flesh and bone and blood.

About exploitation and bleeding others dry.

And how we should treat those who, despite appearances, may be not like us at all …