HUMAN VAMPIRES.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 54, 23 January 1877, Page 3

HUMAN VAMPIRES.

The Albany Argus gives the folloAving: —" Blood drinking has become quite popu •• lar of late years, and many invalids daily visit the abbatoirs of New York for the purpose of drinking the warm blood of the ox. It is a fact, not so generally known however, that this appetite for blood increases upon those Avho indulge in it. Women, who at first quaff with repugnance and some horror a Avineglass of the Avarm crimson gore, gradually acquire a craving for it, and take doAvn a tumblerful with evident relish. Parties under this spell almost invariably manifest a desire to try the effects of human blood. Tavo cases of this kind have been reported in NeAV York. A young lady, belonging to a respectable family, suffered in health while devoting herself to her academical studies. Her medical attendant, Avho vouches for the truth of the story, suggested blood-drink-ing. Permission and the necessary privacy was secured at the abattoir. Salutary effects Avere not long in folloAving. The pallor left her cheek, her frame became more robust, and in ten months she gained 151b in weight. From having been a pale uninteresting-looking girl, she developed radiant beauty, and she married the young assistant of the medical adviser Avho had saved her life. Well acquainted with the means by which she had been restored, her husband encouraged her natural curiosity respecting the effects of various kinds of blood ; and probably quite as much for the purpose of his own professional information, as for the gratification of her own Avish, he opened a small artery in his leg, and permitted her to suck the vital tide. An inordinate mania for her husband's blood forthwith supervened. He gratified her cravings again and again, until disgust for her became the predominent feelings of his mind ; and after he had done himself a great amount of physical injury, he bade her a final adieu and sailed for Peru. The wretched young wife noAV lies on a sick bed, and li\*es almost entirely on blood brought her from an abbatoir. She is a monomaniac on this subject, and had she the opportunity would undoubtedly become a vampire, and banquet perpetually on human blood. The other case Avas that of a woman of tAventy-five, threatened with a decline. By the advice of a physician she took, four times a day, a tablespoonful of codliver oil mixed in a Avineglassf ul of blood. The Avoman was restored to health, but Avhen she left off taking the cod-liver oil she continued taking the dose of blood. At this time her husband had met with an accident on the railway, and by this means his Avife got a taste of his blood—and from that time she became irresistably impelled to repeat the taste. Absolute restraint hap to be restored to stop her. She was brutalised by her unnatural indulgence."