Bacteria and vampirism in cinema

A vampire is a non-dead and non-alive chimerical creature, which, according to various folklores and popular superstitions, feeds on blood of he living to draw vital force. Vampires do not reproduce by copulation, but by bite. Vampirism is thus similar to a contagious disease contracted by ntravascular inoculation with a suspected microbial origin. In several vampire films, two real bacteria were staged, better integrated than others in opular imagination: Yersinia pestis and Treponema pallidum. Bacillus vampiris was created for science-fiction. These films are attempts to better efine humans through one of their greatest fears: infectious disease. 2013 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.