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Blood Suckers

Vampires v.s Mosquitoes

By Philip ObinnaPublished 4 years ago 6 min read
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Hands up if you love vampires! That’s what I thought. The blood-sucking undead doesn’t even love themselves. I’d know, I’ve seen the movies. In Dracula’s own words right there in Stephen Sommers’s Van Helsing movie; ‘NO! I have no heart, I feel no love. Nor fear, nor joy, nor sorrow. I am hollow… and I will live forever.’ Who would love such a loveless hollow creature?

The word ‘vampire’ is of Slavic origin meaning; ‘blood drunkenness.’ It makes sense, you know, for the dead to need blood to reanimate themselves. This is why I think mosquitoes are arguably bona fide vampires. Vampires are the dead who are cursed to live, that’s if you see vampirism as living. Can mosquitoes say the same? They’re not dead but they subsist on human blood. This is one glaring reason it is unfair to associate bats with vampirism ahead of mosquitoes. A prominent part of modern folklore is that bats are transformed bodies of dead people who are not at peace and who prowl the earth at night sucking the blood of human beings. In the bat’s defense, its preferred source of blood-meals is primarily animals. Of course, this may come across as a bias against animals but the cows and horses are not exactly complaining, or aren’t they?

Mosquitoes have far more qualifications as lethal blood-suckers than are bats or even Dracula. To begin with, mosquitoes are literal bloodsuckers, what with their proboscis with which they perforate and suck blood from the capillary in much the same way human slurp up beverages using straws. Bats, on the other hand, make a slight incision on the flesh of their victims and then lap up the blood that tickles out. That’s not literal blood-sucking, now is it? Oh, and then there’s Dracula. Well, the walking dead don’t factor much in this equation since we won’t ignore the fact he’s no more than a figment of overactive imaginations.

But then, apprehension and legitimate belief in the fanged undead that cause harm to the living was palpable and widespread in Europe in the middle ages. The twentieth and twenty-first centuries have seen a reemergence of vampire legends and mythical blood-sucking creatures. Thus there is an inadvertent persisting question of just how mythical vampires really are. It is a well-worn fact that there are often elements of truth in every superstition. If you take a closer look at a rumor, there’s more than likely a thread of truth buried within. After all, there is no smoke without fire. The fire beneath a superstition might just vindicate the story. For example, most people who consider themselves rational will tell you that vampires are no more than cinematic inventions. In Pope Benedict XIV’s own words, vampires are ‘fallacious fictions of human fantasy.’

But if you investigate just a little more, you may be shocked to learn that there are real-life individuals who drink human blood probably in a misguided attempt to stay healthy physically and physiologically. Communities of self-identified vampires can be found on the internet and in cities and towns around the world. This reality stretches the assertion that vampires are no more than fictitious creatures of imagination. The modern vampires say they’re not the same as people with a blood fetish, but who cares? They’re ‘blood-suckers,’ all of them. Think about it. The existence of earthlings who are veritably drawn to ingesting human blood makes one wonder if fanged vampires were entirely myths fueled by ignorance and misunderstanding. While the idea of an ambulatory corpse will make most people roll their eyes, who’s to say that the entity has not simply evolved through centuries into non-fanged, non-nocturnal, not-dead beings? I mean, educated people believe they’re descendants of apes and cousins of baboons! Vampire superstition thrived in the middle ages especially as the plague decimated entire towns. The disease often left behind bleeding mouth lesions on its victims, which to the uneducated was a sure sign of vampirism. Some experts have equally pointed to porphyria, a blood disorder that can cause severe blisters on the skin that’s exposed to sunlight, as a disease that may have been linked to the vampire legend. But how can a thinking person readily debunk the reality of vampires when there are, in fact, people today who enjoy drinking blood? Merticus of the Atlanta Vampire Alliance says they’re not weirdoes as is often depicted of them in cinemas. They’re doctors, construction workers, teachers; just about any man or woman you might pass on the street, meet at the bar, or ride with on the subway train. In other words, they’re just like you and me, you disagree?

What is it about blood, really, what is it? Merticus says it’s the energy; it all boils down to energy. The rest of us are content getting all the energy we need from food; meat and veggies. Vampires, on the other hand, want to move up the food chain. Humans leeching energy from other humans just like mosquitoes. Hands up if you love mosquitoes! That’s what I thought; I’d be disappointed if you do. Mosquitoes are worse vampires on many counts. Even Dracula needed to be invited in before he could attack his prey; mosquitoes do not require an invitation to our remotest privacies. There are only three species of bats that subsist on blood; there are over a hundred species of bloodsucking mosquitoes. And then there’s the body count. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that mosquitoes cause millions of death each year making it the deadliest animal on earth, even deadlier than humans. How many human lives do bats and Dracula take each year? According to batworld.org, there are zero to two human deaths per year in the USA from bat rabies.

History.com says vampires are evil mythological beings who roam the earth at night searching for people whose blood they feed upon. Isn’t this rather a perfect description of mosquitoes? Sunlight weakens and even kills vampires; the same is perfectly true about mosquitoes. Vampires drink your blood and then you turn into a vampire. Mosquitoes don’t offer any such redeeming options; you downright die of malaria, zika virus, dengue fever, and myriad other mosquito-borne diseases. It is said that Vlad Dracula (Vlad, the Impaler) whom it is widely believed Bram Stoker based his novel, ‘Dracula,’ enjoyed dining amidst his dying victims and dipping his bread in their blood. Vlad fought valiantly against the Ottoman Empire and his victims were his enemies. It is highly ill-advised to ingest blood at all unless you’re a mosquito. Because blood is so rich in iron — and because the body has difficulty excreting excess iron — any animal that consumes blood regularly runs a risk of an iron overdose. And there’s the palpable danger of contracting blood-borne diseases.

Abraham Setrakian was able to exterminate the formidable blood-sucking strigol, a vampiric creature known as Herr Elchorist in The Strain American television series, by infecting it with a dose of silver he had taken in tablet form. The strigol promptly went critical and died – or whatever it means for the undead to die- after drinking Setrakian’s blood. A mosquito would have survived Setrakian’s poison blood. Mosquitoes are vectors of deadly diseases that do not harm them but they could transmit the same diseases to their victims who would suffer and even die as a result. Mosquitoes have a mechanism that ‘chops off’ the genetic coding of the disease they carry, rendering it inert in their tiny bodies. With this single capability, mosquitoes surpass the prowess of bats and Dracula put together.

The human body does have an advanced immune system but we do not bite others to transfer deadly diseases to them; leave that to mosquitoes. Blood is full of proteins and amino acids. Perhaps then, the curse of vampirism is essentially a misbegotten desire for the building blocks of life that is perfectly available by non-human-biting means- Dracula exempted.

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