What is porphyria, why is it called “The Vampyre Disease”?
Porphyria is actually a group of diseases, all pertaining to the metabolism of porphyrin rings that, along with iron, are responsible for the oxygen-carrying properties of hemoglobin–an ingredient in blood. It is a very rare genetic disorder, and is in no way contagious. It may have developed among the European nobility due to the large amount of inbreeding occurring at the time. In 1964, in an article in the _Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine_, L. Illis proposed that porphyria might be an explanation for werewolf legends. More than 20 years later, in 1985, David Dolphin presented a paper at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science proposing that porphyria might be an explanation for vampire legends. It was later refuted by other professionals as unlikely due to the fact that the only form of porphyria that could have contributed to this was the rarest form and occurred in very few people throughout history. So, why the link between porphyria and
