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Did Dracula Cry Blood?

In the books and movies Dracula drinks blood, but in real life he probably cried blood. Or at least Prince Vlad III did. He was the historical figure on which the monstrous vampire may have been based.

Dracula, Prince of darkness, Lord of the undead! The mythical character came into being from the imagination of Irish writer Bram Stoker in 1897. The author may have been inspired by Vlad III, prince of Wallachia (a region of Romania), who lived from 1431 to 1476. Although he was obviously not an undead vampire, the man was certainly a match for Stoker's character in terms of cruelty. During his lifetime, he had his enemies flayed, boiled alive or – his favourite – impaled, hence his nickname Vlad the Impaler.

Bloody tears

Despite his cruel behaviour, Vlad III is still a national hero in Romania to this day, because he defended his people against the Ottoman Empire. Those battles must have weakened the infamous leader a lot, because a team of scientists discovered indications that Vlad III suffered from numerous ailments – some more gruesome than others.

For example, the prince is believed to have suffered from inflammation of the respiratory tract and/or skin, and he also had ciliopathies, genetic conditions that can lead to retention of mucus and bacteria in the respiratory tract. His most remarkable ailment, however, was probably haemolacria: he cried tears that (partly) consisted of blood.

Handwritten letters

How could the investigators find out about the long-dead prince's health problems? Through careful examination of three handwritten letters from him. When you write, your hands touch the paper, transferring a wide range of molecules from skin to paper.

So the researchers placed a thin plastic film over the letters, which kept the ink intact but absorbed peptides – the building blocks of proteins – from the paper. They then conducted tests to distinguish the peptides left behind by Vlad III from other molecules that got on the letters at a later stage. The 16 proteins that were the source of these peptides revealed the famous prince's health problems.

Even scarier

In any case, it seems very appropriate that a cruel person like Vlad III should have cried tears of blood. If Bram Stoker had known this, he might have given his Count Dracula the same dreaded ailment to scare his readers even more.