Is artificial blood safe for vampires to eat?

The female most closely associated with vampirism was definitely Hungarian – the princess and serial killer Countess Elizabeth of Bathory. Elizabeth was alleged to have drained the blood from over 600 young girls to feed her restorative blood baths. Again history cautions us from being too judgmental. Blood baths were not mentioned at the Countess’s trial; the King at the time owed the Countess a lot of money, and the evidence against her was probably obtained under torture. Still this has not stopped her being named in the Guinness Book of Records as the most prolific murderer in the western world. Another victim of the vampire myths is the poor vampire bat. Named after the novel, rather than the other way around, there are three species that all hail from the American continent: Desmodus rotundus, Diphylla ecaudata and Diaemus youngi. They do indeed feed entirely on blood. Although they hunt at night, their mode of attack is somewhat less dramatic than that of the eponymous Count. When they spot a sleeping mammal (including humans), they make a tiny incision with their sharp teeth. The victim remains asleep while the bat laps up their blood – real vampires don’t suck! The blood continues to flow, rather than coagulating, because the saliva of the bat contains a glycoprotein that acts as an anticoagulant by inhibiting specific plasma coagulation factors. Let no one claim that biochemists lack a sense of humour, for this protein goes by the name of draculin. The effect of a vampire bat attack is rather less dramatic than that of a fictional vampire – the animal, after all, strives to avoid detection to carry on its meal. There is no chance of dying from blood loss or turning into a vampire; the only concern is transmission of rabies Historical perspective