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Taken Verbatim From:
"Vampires, Werewolves, & Demons. Twentieth Century Reports in the Psychiatric Literature." Richard Noll. Brunner/Mazel Publishing, Inc. New York, New York. ©1992.
According to the legend of the vampire, it is really only after a vampire victim's first feeding, the first tasting of blood, that individuals cross over the line and become vampires. They then must forever serve the mad craving for blood that this experience initiates. This crossing over the line, the breach of a cultural taboo against the drinking of blood, is what marks the beginning of the disease of vampirism, both in legend and in fact. For this reason, the modern phenomenon called "clinical vampirism" is perhaps best understood in terms of the primitive theory of a disease caused by the violation of a taboo (see the introduction to this book). The excitement experienced by engaging in a forbidden act only reinforces the behavior and increases the likelihood that it will be repeated again and again.
Herschel Prins (1984), a British authority on clinical vampirism whose work has been invaluable in defining the syndrome, points out that in the psychiatric literature the word "vampirism" has been used to cover a spectrum of phenomena. Such rare activities as necrophagia (eating the flesh of the human dead), necrophilia (sexual excitement and contract with corpses), cannibalism, and other sequelae of a lustmord (lust-murder) such as necrosadism (the abuse of corpses) have been included under this label since the 19th century in addition to the traditional meaning of drinking the blood of others (vampirism) and one's own blood (autovampirism). All of these activities are discussed together in a paper on "unusual sexual syndromes" by Rebal, Faguet, and Woods (1982).
It is quite conceivable that Bram Stoker came into contact with the 1892 English translation of Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) by the famous German neurologist and psychiatrist Richard van Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902), which contains many vivid case histories of lust-murders involving necrophagia, necrophilia, blood drinking, and the sexual excitement that some individuals can only experience when they see fresh blood flowing, or imagine it to be doing so, from their sexual partners. The vampires in Stoker's book perform gruesome lust-murders on men, women, and even on children that are similar in tone to the graphic examples provided in Krafft-Ebing's famous text. The 19th century expert on sexual pathology defines "lust-murder" as "lust potentiated as cruelty, murderous lust extending to anthropophagy" (Krafft-Ebing, 1892, p. 62). The most vampire-like of the lust-murders cited by Krafft-Ebing is the often-cited story of a 19-year-old vinedresser by the name of Leger:
Case 19....From youth moody, silent, shy of people. He starts out in search of a situation. He wanders about eight days in the forest, there catches a girl twelve years old, violates her, mutilates her genitals, tears out her heart, eats of it, drinks the blood, and buries the remains. (Krafft-Ebing, 1892, pp. 63-64)
The article by Prins in this collection includes his classification schema for the varying degrees of what he considers to be the best definition of vampirism. As he himself notes, it is based on the work of Bourguignon (1977; 1983). The model of clinical vampirism proposed here (and based on a reading of many of the case histories below) defines the syndrome according to a discernible course that fits all the case histories in one or more of its aspects. It is also proposed that the sexual blood-fetish syndrome defined here as clinical vampirism should bear a new eponymous label in future psychiatric treatments and be renamed Renfield's syndrome in honor of the character in Bram Stoker's Dracula who bore many of the classic signs and symptoms of the disorder.
The following are the proposed characteristics of Renfield's syndrome:
A pivotal event often leads to the development of vampirism (blood drinking). This usually occurs in childhood, and the experience of bleeding or the taste of blood is found to be "exciting." After puberty, this excitement associated with blood is experienced as sexual arousal.
The progression of Renfield's syndrome follows a typical course in many cases:
Autovampirism is generally developed first, usually in childhood, by initially self-inducing scrapes or cuts in the skin to produce blood, which is then ingested, to later learning how to open major blood vessels (veins, arteries) in order to drink a steady stream of warm blood more directly. The blood may then be ingested at the time of the opening, or may be saved in jars or other containers for later imbibing or for other reasons. Masturbation often accompanies autovampiristic practices.
Zoophagia (literally the eating of living creatures, but more specifically the drinking of their blood) may develop prior to autovampirism in some cases, but usually is the next to develop. Persons with Renfield's syndrome may themselves catch and eat or drink the blood of living creatures such as insects, cats, dogs, or birds. The blood of other species may be obtained at places such as slaughter houses and then ingested. Sexual activity may or may not accompany these functions.
Vampirism in its true form is the next stage to develop - procuring and drinking the blood of living human beings. This may be done by stealing blood from hospitals, laboratories, and so forth, or by attempting to drink the blood directly from others. Usually this involves some sort of consensual sexual activity, but in lust-murder type cases and in other nonlethal violent crimes, the sexual activity and vampirism may not be consensual.
The compulsion to drink blood almost always has a strong sexual component associated with it.
Blood will sometimes take on an almost mystical significance as a sexualized symbol of life or power, and, as such, an experience of well-being or empowerment will be reported by those with Renfield's syndrome following such activities.
Persons with Renfield's syndrome are primarily male.
The defining characteristics of Renfield's syndrome is the blood-drinking compulsion. Other related activities such as necrophilia and necrophagia that do not have as their goal drinking of blood are not to be considered aspects of this disorder.
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