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Vampire's Grasp: The Hidden History of Consumption in New England
348 pages, Paperback
Published April 5, 2024
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December 14, 2024
Contemporary Americans determined to survive modern illnesses such as COVID-19 may find some comfort in knowing that our ancestors also struggled with an unseen killer more than a century earlier. This menace was tuberculosis, aka "consumption," an affliction that some people in the 19th century believed was spread by a kind of vampire, though not the sort associated with Bram Stoker's Dracula. Afflicted families pondered if kin who showed telltale signs of the wasting disease, with spurts of blood coughed out of their lungs, were somehow being preyed upon by relatives who'd earlier died with similar symptoms. With no hope for a cure, and no help from the medical community, some families resorted to a folk ritual they hoped might save their loved ones: exhume the corpse of a buried relative and inspect the remains for signs of liquid blood in the organs or heart. If such blood was found, it was surmised that the dead might be drawing life from the living. The vital organ would be cut from the corpse, burnt, and the ashes administered as medicine to the sick, in hopes of breaking what was believed to be a chain of contagion emanating from the dead.
Folklorist Michael E. Bell previously published "Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires" (full discloure: I edited that book in the early 2000s), a first-person travel narrative that was the result of his first 20 years of research into this topic, with 20 exhumations he knew of to that point.
Now in "Vampire's Grasp: The Hidden History of Consumption in New England," Bell has assembled a complete and engrossing history of this now-forgotten ritual that occurred in 8 northeastern US states over a span of more than 100 years, a period that one interviewer of the author dubbed "the sustained American vampire panic." For the new book, he's undertaken a thorough forensic study of the historical record. In primary sources, he’s found narratives about the practice left behind by family members, doctors, coroners, observers, participants, descendants, newspaper reporters, and such literary figures as Amy Lowell, Edith Wharton, and Owen Wister, identifying a total of 80 instances of the exhumation custom.
"Vampire’s Grasp" is a fascinating, readable chronicle that offers valuable insight into our own time. It will be of compelling interest to all involved in public health, medicine, folklore, and everyone who wants to understand how our ancestors understood illness.
Interested readers needn't take it from me—consider the words of John Edgar Browning, Ph.D., co-editor of Norton's critical edition of "Dracula": "The nation's preeminent folklorist on the American vampire here returns to, and extends, the work work of his magnum opus for a post-Covid America still reeling from the pandemic. The age of Amerca's vampires is creepier, and sadder, than any vampire movie."
Folklorist Michael E. Bell previously published "Food for the Dead: On the Trail of New England’s Vampires" (full discloure: I edited that book in the early 2000s), a first-person travel narrative that was the result of his first 20 years of research into this topic, with 20 exhumations he knew of to that point.
Now in "Vampire's Grasp: The Hidden History of Consumption in New England," Bell has assembled a complete and engrossing history of this now-forgotten ritual that occurred in 8 northeastern US states over a span of more than 100 years, a period that one interviewer of the author dubbed "the sustained American vampire panic." For the new book, he's undertaken a thorough forensic study of the historical record. In primary sources, he’s found narratives about the practice left behind by family members, doctors, coroners, observers, participants, descendants, newspaper reporters, and such literary figures as Amy Lowell, Edith Wharton, and Owen Wister, identifying a total of 80 instances of the exhumation custom.
"Vampire’s Grasp" is a fascinating, readable chronicle that offers valuable insight into our own time. It will be of compelling interest to all involved in public health, medicine, folklore, and everyone who wants to understand how our ancestors understood illness.
Interested readers needn't take it from me—consider the words of John Edgar Browning, Ph.D., co-editor of Norton's critical edition of "Dracula": "The nation's preeminent folklorist on the American vampire here returns to, and extends, the work work of his magnum opus for a post-Covid America still reeling from the pandemic. The age of Amerca's vampires is creepier, and sadder, than any vampire movie."
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