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VAMPIRE

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Originally appearing in Volume V27, Page 877 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VAMPIRE , a See also:

term, apparently of Servian origin (wampir), originally applied in eastern See also:Europe to See also:blood-sucking ghosts. but in See also:modern usage transferred to one or more See also:species of blood-sucking bats inhabiting See also:South See also:America. In the first-mentioned meaning a vampire is usually supposed to be the soul of a dead See also:man which quits the buried See also:body by See also:night to suck the blood of living persons. Hence, when the vampire's See also:grave is opened, his See also:corpse is found to be fresh and rosy from the blood which he has thus absorbed. To put a stop to his ravages, a stake is driven through the corpse, or the See also:head cut off, or the See also:heart torn out and the body burned, or boiling See also:water and See also:vinegar are poured on the grave. The persons who turn vampires are generally wizards, witches, suicides and those who have come to a violent end or have been cursed by their parents or by the See also:church. But any one may become a vampire if an See also:animal (especially a See also:cat) leaps over his corpse or a See also:bird flies over it. Sometimes the vampire is thought to be the soul of a living man which leaves his body in See also:sleep, to go in the See also:form of a See also:straw or fluff of down and suck the blood of other sleepers. The belief in vampires chiefly prevails in See also:Slavonic lands, as in See also:Russia (especially See also:White Russia and the See also:Ukraine), See also:Poland and See also:Servia, and among the Czechs of Bohemia and the other Slavonic races of See also:Austria. It became specially prevalent in See also:Hungary between the years 1730 and 1735, whence all Europe was filled with reports of the exploits of vampires. Several See also:treatises were written on the subject, among which may be mentioned Ranft's De masticatione mortuorum in tumulis (1734) and See also:Calmet's Dissertation on the Vampires of Hungary, translated into See also:English in 1750. It is probable that this superstition gained much ground from the reports of those who had examined the bodies of persons buried alive though believed to be dead, and was based on the See also:twisted position of the corpse, the marks of blood on the See also:shroud and on the See also:face and hands—results of the frenzied struggle in the See also:coffin before See also:life became See also:extinct. The belief in vampirism has also taken See also:root among the Albanians and modern Greeks, but here it may be due to Slavonic See also:influence.

Two species of blood-sucking hats (the only species known) —Desmodus See also:

rufus and Diphylla ecaudata—representing two genera (see See also:CHIROPTERA), inhabit the tropical and See also:part of the subtropical regions of the New See also:World, and are restricted to South and Central America. They appear to be confined chiefly to the See also:forest-clad parts, and their attacks on men and other warm-blooded animals were noticed by some of the earliest writers. Thus See also:Peter See also:Martyr (Anghiera), who wrote soon after the See also:con. quest of South America, says that in the See also:Isthmus of See also:Darien there were bats which sucked the blood of men and See also:cattle when asleep to such a degree as to even kill them. Condamine, a writer of the 18th See also:century, remarks that at Borja (See also:Ecuador) and in other places they had entirely destroyed the cattle introduced by the missionaries. See also:Sir See also:Robert See also:Schomburgk relates that at Wicki, on the See also:river Berbice, no fowls could be kept on See also:account of the ravages of these creatures, which attacked their combs, causing them to appear white from loss of blood- The See also:present writer, when in South and Central America, had many accounts given him as to the attacks of the vampires, and it was agreed upon by most of his informants that these bats when attacking horses showed a decided preference for those of a See also:grey See also:colour. It is interesting to speculate how far the vampire bats may have been instrumental—when they were, perhaps, more abundant—in causing the destruction of the See also:horse, which had disappeared from America previous to the See also:discovery of that See also:continent. Although these bats were known thus See also:early to Europeans, the species to which they belonged were not determined for a See also:long See also:time, several of the large frugivorous species having been wrongly set down as blood-suckers, and named accordingly. Thus the name Vampyrus was suggested to See also:Geoffroy and adopted by Spix, who also considered that the long-tongued bats of the See also:group Glossophaga were addicted to blood, and accordingly described Glossopleaga soricina as a very cruel blood-sucker (sanguisuga crudelissima), believing that the long See also:brush-tipped See also:tongue was used to increase the flow of blood. Vampyrus spectrum, a large See also:bat inhabiting See also:Brazil, of sufficiently forbidding aspect, which was long considered by naturalists to be thoroughly sanguivorous in its habits, and named accordingly by Geoffroy, has been shown by the observations of travellers to be mainly frugivorous, and is considered by the inhabitants of the countries in which it is found to be perfectly harmless. See also:Charles See also:Waterton believed Artibeus planirostris, a See also:common bat in See also:British See also:Guiana, usually found in the See also:roofs of houses, and now known to be frugivorous, to be the veritable vampire; but neither he nor any of the naturalists that preceded him had succeeded in detecting any bat in the See also:act of See also:drawing blood. It See also:fell to the See also:lot of Charles See also:Darwin to determine one of the blood-sucking species at least, and the following is his account of the circumstances under which the discovery of the sanguivorous habits of Desmodus rufus was made: " The vampire bat is often the cause of much trouble by biting the horses on their withers. The injury is generally not so much owing to the loss of blood as to the inflammation which the pressure of the See also:saddle afterwards produces.

The whole circumstance has lately been doubted in See also:

England; I was therefore fortunate in being present when one was actually caught on a horse's back. We were bivouacking See also:late one evening near See also:Coquimbo, in See also:Chile, when my servant, noticing that one of the horses was very restive, went to see what was the See also:matter, and, fancying he could detect something, suddenly put his See also:hand on the beast's withers, and secured the vampire" (Naturalist's Voyage See also:Round the World, p. 22). Desmodus rufus, the common blood-sucking bat, is widely spread over the tropical and subtropical parts of Central and South America from See also:Oaxaca to See also:southern Brazil and Chile. It is a comparatively small bat, a little larger than the noctule, the head and body about 3 in. in length, the forearm 22, with a remark- ably long and strong thumb; it is destitute of a tail, and has a very See also:peculiar See also:physiognomy (fig. I). The body is covered with rather See also:short See also:fur of a reddish-See also:brown colour but vary- See also:ing in shade, the extremities of the FIG. 1.—l-iead of Blood- hairs sometimes ashy. The See also:teeth are sucking vampire (Desmo- peculiar and characteristic, admirably dus rufus). adapted for the purposes for which they are employed. The upper front teeth (incisors), of which there are only two, are enormously enlarged (see fig. 2), and in shape obliquely triangular like small guillotines. The canines, though smaller than the incisors, are large and See also:sharp; but the cheek-teeth, so well See also:developed in other bats, are very small and reduced in number to two above and three below, on each See also:side, with laterally compressed crowns rising but slightly above the level of the See also:gum, their longitudinally disposed cutting edges (in the upper See also:jaw) being continuous with the See also:base of the canine and with each other.

The See also:

lower front teeth (incisors) are small, bifid, in pairs, and separated from the canines,with a space in front. The lower cheek-teeth are narrow, like those in the upper jaw, but the anterior tooth is slightly larger than the others, and separated by a small space from the canines. Behind the lower incisors the jaw is deeply hollowed out to receive the extremities of the large upper incisors. With this peculiar dentition there is associated as remarkable a departure from the See also:general type in the form of the See also:digestive 1pparatus. The exceedingly narrow See also:oesophagus opens at right angles into a narrow, See also:intestine-like See also:stomach, which almost immediately terminates on the right, without a distinct pylorus, in the duodenum, but on the See also:left forms a greatly elongated caecum, See also:bent and folded upon itself, which appears at first sight like part of the intestines. This, the cardiac extremity of the stomach, is, for a short distance to the left of the entrance of the oesophagus, still very narrow, but soon increases in See also:size, till near its termination it attains a See also:diameter quite three times that of the short pyloric portion. The length of this cardiac diverticulum of the stomach appears to vary from 2 to 6 in., the size in each specimen probably depending on the amount of See also:food obtained by the animal before it was captured. The only other known species of blood-sucking bat, Diphylla ecaudata, inhabits Brazil, and appears to be much less abundant than Desmodus rufus, from which it is distinguished by its slightly smaller size, by the See also:absence of a groove in the front of the lower See also:lip, the non-development of the interfemoral membrane in the centre, and the presence of a short calcaneum (absent in D. rufus), but more particularly by the presence of an additional rudimentary cheek-tooth (?molar) above and below, and the peculiar form of the lower incisors, which are much See also:expanded in the direction of the jaws and pectinated, forming a semicircular See also:row touching each other, the See also:outer incisors being wider than the inner ones, with six notches, the inner incisors with three each. Travellers describe the wounds inflicted by the large sharp-edged incisors as being similar to those caused by a See also:razor 'when shaving: a portion of the skin is shaved off and, a large number of severed capillary vessels being thus exposed, a See also:constant flow of blood is maintained. From this source the blood is See also:drawn through the exceedingly narrow gullet—too narrow for anything solid to pass—into the intestine-like stomach, whence it is, probably, gradually drawn off during the slow progress of digestion, while the animal, sated with food, is See also:hanging in a See also:state of torpidity from the roof of its See also:cave or from the inner sides of a hollow See also:tree. (G. E.

End of Article: VAMPIRE

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