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To: Dutch who wrote (28696)	8/13/2000 1:57:51 PM
From: dustcatcher	Respond to of 35685

Dutch: Yeah, graveyards seem to inspire all sorts of things and stories. One that I've seen is that of the origin of vampires--or, rather, the legend of vampires. Long ago in the dark ages the nobility took up the practice of poisoning people they didn't want around for one reason or another. At that time the "best" poison available was arsenic (trioxide) and this would be dropped into a drink from a poison ring, for instance. Finally others glommed onto the idea and found that if they took a little arsenic with their food daily they would become "immune" to the doses used to poison people. The result was that a large proportion of the nobility in Italy, the Balkans, etc. took some arsenic on a daily basis. Much later, arsenic was found to be a pretty good germ killer. In fact, it was found (in the form of copper arsphenamine) by Ehrlich to cure syphilis. A major discovery. At any rate, even in the form of arsenic trioxide it very probably had the effect on those who took it to cure all sorts of skin problems and also to preserve the body after death. When on purpose or accidentally a coffin was opened and the corpse was not decomposed, people sought a reason. Thus the legend of the vampire was born. I don't know if the origin of the vampire legend is true or not but it seems likely to me. Now, if you really want a long story, I'll tell you how the legend of the zombie originated! ---Jack---