Illness & Illustration: The Beauty Myths of Tuberculosis & Vampires

Could tuberculosis truly shape our understanding of beauty? Prepare to unravel the eerie yet intriguing connection between this historical disease and the evolution of beauty standards across centuries. With Christina and Camille at the helm, we guide you through the pale, waif-like ideals of the 17th and 18th centuries, deeply entwined with TB’s impact. Drawing from Carolyn Day’s insightful work “Consumptive Chic,” we discuss how TB's haunting image inspired Victorian fashion and even shaped modern grooming habits, particularly influencing the preference for clean-shaven looks among men.

Explore the curious fusion of fashion, health, and societal perceptions as we dissect how TB influenced women's fashion choices. From the pointed corsets and makeup that mimicked the consumptive look, to the cultural shifts driven by food accessibility and public health initiatives, we reveal how a medical condition could transform clothing norms. Our conversation even takes a lighthearted turn, contemplating how TB sparked an enduring fascination with women’s shoes, leaving a lasting legacy on shopping habits.

Finally, we venture into the romanticized allure of TB during the 18th and 19th centuries, where the disease was bizarrely perceived as a beauty enhancer. Even Lord Byron used it in his courting repertoire! As we compare photographic studies of TB patients to healthy individuals, we set the stage for an upcoming discussion on the connection between vampire lore and the disease porphyria. Join us as we invite you to share your thoughts and engage with our community, preparing for more fascinating episodes that blend history, culture, and science.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:09

This is a podcast about One Health the idea that the health of humans, animals, plants and the environment that we all share are intrinsically linked.

Speaker 2 0:17

Coming to you from the University of Texas Medical Branch and the Galveston National Laboratory.

Speaker 1 0:21

This is Infectious Science. Where enthusiasm for science?

Speaker 2 0:25

is contagious.

Speaker 3 0:29

Welcome to another episode of the Infectious Science podcast. I have Christina here. Hey, it's me. How's it going?

Speaker 4 0:36

It's going well. It's going well. It's been quite the crazy week, I'm not going to lie, but this weekend's coming, we're going to catch up on schoolwork and all things wild. Catching up on schoolwork. Oh yeah, that's a crazy weekend and hopefully next week will be better. So yeah, Alright.

Speaker 3 0:52

And then we have Camille Ledoux. I just love saying your last name.

Speaker 5 0:55

Great isn't it. I always had French professors at Cornell and they would start to speak to me in French. I was always like oh, bonjour is about the extent of where I can go with that Croissant. They're always so disappointed in me.

Speaker 3 1:09

Happened more than once. You're not from nobility, or what do you say from aristocrats? Not that I know, no.

Speaker 4 1:15

No, the farm in New York was not your castle.

Speaker 3 1:20

No it was not a castle. But we're going to be talking about this today because we have some really interesting topics today to talk about. The first one is TB and Women's beauty standards. Women's beauty standards so there must be some historic component to it, right? Heck?

Speaker 4 1:34

yeah, nobility there you go, that's all right.

Speaker 3 1:38

Dennis.

Speaker 4 1:38

You're forgiven, thank you.

Speaker 3 1:40

And then we're going to be talking about another word that I can't pronounce Porphyria and vampires. Oh wow, excellent, who wants? To start yeah, yeah.

Speaker 5 1:50

So I think it's interesting that you brought up whether or not was tuberculosis a disease of the aristocracy, and I would say tuberculosis was a disease for everybody and still is a disease for everybody, especially because it thrives in crowded conditions. So, particularly if you're thinking of when a lot of the standards around, like women's beauty being influenced by tuberculosis, were forming in like the 17 and 1800s, you can certainly imagine like a crowded city at those times and TB just spreading rapidly. So while it was certainly something that could affect your social status if you were wealthier and got it, it's interesting how TB came to be perceived, and so that's what I wanted to get into today on how TB has shaped women's beauty standards and narratives and how that continues into the modern day, which I think is really wild. Yeah, so there's a bunch of articles on this, and the first one I wanted to talk about is actually a Smithsonian article.

Speaker 5 2:40

It's called how Tuberculosis Shaped Victorian Fashion, and so basically they start off how, in the mid-1800s, tuberculosis had reached really epidemic levels in Europe and in the United States. We now know that TB is infectious and damages the lungs, is spread by respiratory droplets, but that wasn't known at that time and especially before we had antibiotics, victims of tuberculosis would slowly waste away and they would become pale, really thin, and then die of what was known at the time as consumption, because they were literally being like consumed by this disease. And so what's interesting is that between 1780 and 1850, according to an assistant professor at Furman University there was an increasing set of citation of tuberculosis that becomes entwined with feminine beauty, which I think is really interesting. This person, carolyn Day, actually has a book called Consumptive Chic a History of Fashion Beauty and Disease which sounds like a book I need to pick up.

Speaker 5 3:34

Personally, I'll add that and let it be my 70th book of the year Are you on 69.

Speaker 4 3:39

Now I am on 69 for a year.

Speaker 3 3:41

That's my girl, show off, you're just rubbing in it. That's my girl. Show off, show off. You're just rubbing in it.

Speaker 5 3:45

No, we're not. I'm not Maybe two, but I think this could be really cool. So the book is an exploration of how TB impacted early 19th century British fashion and perceptions of beauty, which I think is pretty cool. What is interesting, though, is we do have sources from this time period that tell us how TB was perceived and how it started to be entwined with beauty, like this article talks about. They say that there's a book from 1909 called Tuberculosis, a Treatise by American Authors on Etiology, pathology, frequency Diagnosis, et cetera, et cetera, and in it they note that and this is a quote a considerable number of patients have, and have had for years previous to their sickness, a, a delicate, transparent skin, as well as fine, silky hair, and they talk about how sparkling or dilated eyes, rosy cheeks, red lips these were all common in tuberculosis patients, and there are characteristics that, if you think about it, are caused by a low-grade fever, which tuberculosis can certainly cause. Blush Think about lipstick. We still use these things.

Speaker 5 4:44

But makeup's been around for a really long time and certainly in England. There's a English queen, elizabeth I this was like. She was like died in the 1600s, but she had a half inch of makeup on her face when she died. So makeup's not amazing?

Speaker 4 4:55

Oh, my Atlanta, a half an inch.

Speaker 5 4:58

It was her mask of beauty or something. Okay, kudos to her something. It wouldn't go with the beard. But, interestingly enough, tb was not just on women's beauty standards. They also, once they realized, like what was causing tuberculosis. They thought that men's beards were like breeding ground of the bacteria. And so there was, like this whole campaign, not only for like women's beauty fashions but for men, that they were like you shouldn't have like scraggly beards.

Speaker 4 5:25

Wow, so that helps establish the clean. Clap man is what I'm hearing, maybe Interesting.

Speaker 3 5:31

I had two questions. You were mentioning some really cool stuff. So first of all, what's interesting to me, or it's confusing to me, is you said that people back then didn't know how it was transmitted. Right, like we, we you mentioned it's in crowded rooms, so aerosol droplets and stuff like that, and that's why it's transmitted easily. But the way TB is portrayed in movies, for example, is always the focus on the blood that you cough up, right, the blood in the sputum that comes out, wouldn't it? And I would also assume that you cough more if you have TB. Also assume that you cough more if you have TB. Wouldn't it be? A one plus one equals two calculation. If you end up with cough and you end up with coughing up blood that you think that somebody would understand that's the origin of your disease.

Speaker 5 6:15

It's interesting yeah, a lot of it was this idea of miasma which is talked about in almost all classes on diseases, and it's this idea of like bad air. So maybe I don't know that necessarily they link that with coughing, but the idea that whatever you were inhaling could be dangerous to you was certainly part of it. And part of what was prescribed for treatment for tuberculosis for a very long time was go out to the country and get fresh air. So I think that it wasn't known for a while and I'll talk about this that it was a bacterium that was causing it. It was definitely something that there was this kind of notion that it was in the air.

Speaker 3 6:50

Interesting. The second question that I wanted to ask you is you mentioned that the red lips, the nice skin or what was the word? The porcelain skin or whatever you mentioned it was seen in patients with TB, and it's might be due to low grade fever. But isn't that interesting? Because, like when you're sick, if you have a fever or something like that, you don't look good, right. So why would a low grade fever make you look better? Do you know what I mean?

TB's Influence on Women's Fashion

Speaker 5 7:19

Yeah, yeah. And it's interesting that it became so romanticized, because now we think about it like if you have a fever, you're like sweating, not looking great. But I think it was more of this idea that that women became very fragile with it and it became very entwined with that. And in fact, the fashion and Professor Day talks about this, where, when they were interviewing her for this article, she talked about how like elements of fashion start to highlight the symptoms of the disease article. She talked about how like elements of fashion start to highlight the symptoms of the disease. So you start to see really like pointed corsets to emphasize, like very narrow waist, you're very skinny, the disease is consuming you, you're wasting away.

Speaker 5 7:53

And she also talks about how middle and upper class women would then start to like emulate this consumptive appearance. They would start to wear makeup to lighten their skin and redden their lips and color their cheeks pink and just to give that like consumptive look, which is really wild. I also just want to make a note here that this is also very much tied into the history of women's beauty standards, specifically focusing on white women, and that's inherently racist and absolutely something that isn't called out in any of these articles that I read about this, but it's something that I just want to make a note of that TB likely also still has a role in that. That, like this idea of like very pale, thin women is what's beautiful. It's definitely has those undertones.

Speaker 3 8:33

But the reason why you use lipstick and the Sprite Red is it shows that there's more blood flowing through the lips, and that's the purpose of rosy cheeks too, right, you have more blood vessels that are dilated and bringing blood to your cheeks.

Speaker 4 8:47

So I wonder if it's just like an innate thing, part of our almost animalistic side that found those qualities or characteristics to be attractive. I'm not sure, because I've always wondered. So you see these, let's say, greek statues of women, right, or even the depictions of goddesses such as Aphrodite, I always thought, wow, this is beautiful because these women are so much fuller than what we think. Yes, I have always thought that. I've always been so surprised. I'm like Aphrodite is supposed to be the most beautiful creature in the universe, according to the Greeks, and she is this incredibly like full figured woman and I thought that was amazing. And it did not make sense to me when I was younger because, like you say, our beauty standards are thin, pale. That is the epitome of beauty standards. But then you see the epitome of a beauty standard for these ancient cultures and it was someone who was fuller and I always wondered when did that transition into the current beauty standards that we have? And I wonder if TB really was a huge transitional point.

Speaker 3 9:52

Yeah, Before you get to that, Camille, I would ask you don't you think that culture standards are also shifting, Because back then maybe access to food was not as plentiful as it?

Speaker 1 10:03

is now.

Speaker 3 10:03

And if you're rich and if you're powerful you have access to a lot of food more food that you need for your energy. Than you're powerful, you're attractive right, yeah, you have the means to nourish your body even more than you need.

Speaker 4 10:18

I agree, I agree, I think that's very interesting yeah.

Speaker 5 10:20

Yeah, and I think, Christina, you're absolutely right in that the beauty standards we see today are one, especially with the level of thinness, they are not attainable by healthy people.

Speaker 4 10:30

It's not a reality. I'm glad that it's somewhat changing, but still needs a lot of work.

Speaker 5 10:36

Slowly changing. I certainly cannot say definitively that TV is what brought us into falling in love with thinness, but it's certainly a more recent aspect. Right is what brought us into falling in love with thinness, but it's certainly a more recent aspect, right, 1700s, 1800s was a while ago, but certainly much more recent than you know, ancient Greece or something like that. And I'll talk a little bit about the modern conclusions we can draw from how TB has shaped modern beauty standards. At the end and I think that's a really interesting point to get into but stepping away from just how women looked, tb also influenced how women dressed. From just how women looked, tb also influenced how women dressed, which I thought was really interesting.

Speaker 5 11:06

So, upon the introduction of germ theory, once we stepped away from this miasma theory, realized it was a bacteria that was causing tuberculosis, preventing it became very important. Of course we were like, okay, we can prevent this. And these really big public health campaigns targeted women's fashions a lot of times, particularly the fact that women were wearing like these long trailing skirts and they had this idea that you were like sweeping up germs and carrying them into your home. They were real, almost like a PSA as part of the public health thing that they were like oh, you're sweeping up germs and you're dragging them into your house.

Speaker 5 11:37

And corsets also came under attack because they were like oh, you need to be able to breathe fully yeah, otherwise you're exacerbating tuberculosis, potentially because of the movement of the lungs being so constrained, because you're just like suffocating, which also what's interesting is that this is when health corsets became things. They're much more like elasticated instead of boning inside the corset to keep it so much pressure. What's interesting is they were like don't wear these long trailing skirts, you're spoofing up germs. So you were basically able to have a little bit of a higher hemline to show your ankles. I say that I don't truly know if you could show your ankles or not. Something like that. We're getting close to it, that's for sure. We're getting closer. But you could suddenly see women's shoes. So women's shoes actually became like a thing. So the fact that we have this obsession.

Speaker 4 12:23

I was about to say so. I have tuberculosis to blame for my low bank account. Oh goodness.

Speaker 5 12:30

See, there you go If you have a shoe shopping addiction. It started because we had higher hemlines and tuberculosis, so you weren't sweeping up those germs Darn, which I think is really interesting, because shoe style suddenly became like an important part of a woman's overall look, because you can see them. They weren't just covered by like these voluminous skirts.

Speaker 4 12:49

That is so interesting. I never would have put two and two together.

Speaker 5 12:52

Another thing you might find really wild, which I didn't know until I was reading these articles, is that at the same time that this kind of like raising of the hemlines was happening, doctors started prescribing sunbathing as a treatment for tuberculosis, and this has given rise to the modern phenomenon of tanning.

Speaker 4 13:09

Interesting to see how it changes from someone who's incredibly pale yes, that is a beauty standard to someone who's like golden tan, and that is now a new beauty standard All from the same disease Really interesting.

Speaker 3 13:22

I heard the story and maybe this is multifaceted, but I also heard the story that the very white skin color, the pale skin color, or the porcelain, which was 200, 300, 400 years ago, was associated with aristocrats.

Speaker 4 13:37

Yeah, absolutely, because they didn't have to be outside working.

Speaker 3 13:40

You're not a redneck because you're in the sun, working in the sun.

Speaker 4 13:44

And I think that, too, translates into other cultures, even if they weren't necessarily in touch with each other. I know that that was also something that was very predominant in Eastern cultures as well. Like the same thing, right the lighter and fairer complected you were. That had a huge commentary on your social status as well, so it's interesting to see how skin color this could be a whole podcast in itself, but skin color has so much commentary on someone's social status throughout history, it should be a whole season not only one.

Speaker 4 14:15

I agree. Yeah, that'd be a really long podcast and with some people that are more qualified than not Absolutely, absolutely yeah.

Evolution of TB Romanticization and Vampires

Speaker 5 14:21

Yeah, All very fascinating and interesting things to dive into. I also just wanted to touch back on this idea that tuberculosis became romanticized in this way. That it was interesting. I found this journal article about it actually, which I was like, yeah, someone's written a journal, Like I'm glad that someone has written, like a journal of TB and beauty standards.

Speaker 3 14:38

No, it's like a whole journal.

Speaker 5 14:41

It was called. Even in Death she is Beautiful, confronting Tuberculosis in Art, literature and Medicine.

Speaker 1 14:46

And I was like, oh OK.

Speaker 5 14:50

So I was reading this morning, and what they were talking about is how upper class women who contracted the disease were then, like, judged according to their attractiveness. And it was like a wasting disease, right, tuberculosis, because it was a wasting disease they were like. It enhances your, like female, beauty standards if you become incredibly pale and waxy. Who wants to be like waxy? I feel like people actively avoid that, but I guess that was the thing in Victorian England.

Speaker 4 15:11

I literally could not think of anything worse to be caring about while I am wasting away from tuberculosis.

Speaker 5 15:19

Do I look waxy enough? Do I look waxy? Am I waxy? It gets better, it gets better. You just wait. Is it giving bed baths? And so I think what's interesting is that in this journal article they say that towards the end of the 18th century, tuberculosis was identified as a disease which promoted beauty in women and conferred beauty upon its sufferer, and so the waif-like consumptive was dramatically pale, very thin, red cheeks, bright eyes of fever, and that it became really fashionable to look that way and that good health was basically ordinary, like you were so earthly if you were in good health, Whereas if you had tuberculosis you were ethereal and you were artistic and there was something about it and it was really wild.

Speaker 5 16:02

And what's interesting is that someone did a study of tuberculosis by taking photographic portraits of people with TB and comparing them to like people without TB.

Speaker 4 16:13

Did they have those photos in the journal article they?

Speaker 5 16:15

did Some of them. They were composites, which it was really wild, and of course the ones that they were showing were of women. But it was interesting that there was one physician and then one guy who was a sir. I don't know if he's a sir, make you a lord. I have no idea what this means.

Speaker 4 16:27

Back, in the day Knighted, knighted.

Speaker 5 16:29

Okay, I don't know. So they had this photographic studio at a hospital in London and they took pictures of over 400 people aged 15 to 40, and 442 portraits of TB patients were obtained from three hospitals. And then they did another 200 people that also didn't have the disease and they were photographed and the images were grouped together and they basically ended up, I think, with saying this was not conclusive of anything, because for a while I think the belief that was TB was hereditary, which it can look that way, right, because, like, ok, if one person dies all these other people have taken care of them right in their families, they're also likely to come down with it.

Speaker 5 17:12

No-transcript a portrait of people with this disease.

Speaker 4 17:17

Does it make them more beautiful? Let's compare.

Speaker 5 17:20

It's wild, it's wild.

Speaker 3 17:21

Yeah, this reminds me. Just to infuse this with a little bit of pop culture, I have this movie on my Netflix list that I need to watch, and it's supposedly about a guy who goes to Hungary or Romania or something like that and takes pictures of people that contracted 1918 flu and were dying of 1918 flu oh interesting, so I'll let you guys know how the movie is.

Speaker 5 17:44

That sounds very interesting. Is it based on a true story?

Speaker 3 17:47

I think it's a. No, it's a horror movie.

Speaker 5 17:50

But hey, I like pathogen horror. That'd be wild, though, like the 1918 flu that was some rough stuff, I wouldn't be taking photos of the people. I would be like this is not a super safe environment for me to be in. Wow, absolutely, that's wild. So I just I had to add this in Tu. I just I had to add this in Tuberculosis was so romanticized it became a pickup line. It became a pickup line.

Speaker 5 18:12

And I checked multiple sources for this because I was like this can't, this can't be real, no one can be this dramatic. This man was this dramatic. So if you're ready, romantic poet Lord Byron wanted to die of consumption and he has said to have told a friend how pale I look. I should like, I think, to die of consumption because then the woman would all say see that poor Byron, how interesting he looks in dying. Wow, can you imagine.

Speaker 3 18:40

But why is that a pickup line, though?

Speaker 5 18:42

But that is a pickup line he wants women to be like. How pale and ethereal and tuberculous he looks, while dying.

Speaker 1 18:49

That's a pickup line, wouldn't you say?

Speaker 3 18:51

That is good.

Speaker 5 18:51

That's something, or at least a desire to like be, like wow, I don't know, I just think that's wild.

Speaker 4 18:57

Yeah, that is incredible.

Speaker 5 18:59

Anyways.

Speaker 4 19:00

And it also shows how superficial humankind has always been. I'm not going to.

Speaker 5 19:05

You know what I mean. He would rather die coughing up blood, just so women would be like how sickly he looks.

Speaker 4 19:11

Wow, so sickly, so handsome in his sickness.

Speaker 5 19:14

In death.

Speaker 4 19:15

Yes, yeah, anyways.

Speaker 3 19:18

Romanticizing death. Romanticizing death.

Speaker 4 19:21

Isn't that an entire? You could write a PhD off of that. Yeah, that's still a, thing, right, yeah?

Speaker 5 19:25

Absolutely Anyways.

Speaker 4 19:25

Absolutely. That's still a thing, right, yeah, absolutely, anyways. So off of this conversation of TB and beauty standards and how beauty standards themselves have evolved throughout time, I'm going to take this in another direction and talk about how the lore of vampires has actually evolved over time, and this is what Dennis was touching on at the beginning. My topic of the day is going to be Porphyria and vampires. So originally, vampires, from what I could see in my research, can be traced way, way back, and some of the original stories that at least had to do with a character that resembled a vampire, traced back to ancient Greece, with the Empusa, I believe, is how you pronounce it, or even Strix, and that traces all the way back to about 4500 BC, as late as then. That's incredibly early that we even began having some lore about some kind of vampirish figure.

Speaker 3 20:18

So was it. They didn't use the word vampire, but was it a description of a human in the need for blood or the urge to drink blood?

Speaker 4 20:27

Yeah, so the Strix character was apparently a bat with a human head that would feed off of the blood of humans, essentially from what I remember Now.

Evolution of Vampire Lore and Porphyria

Speaker 3 20:38

I have a Halloween costume idea.

Speaker 5 20:39

Yeah, I was going to say that is a disturbing image. I feel like, yeah, that makes me think of what we do in the shadows oh my God, when they're like trying to turn into a bat, like Guillermo hasn't quite gotten it, and then he's just like bat, but he's like half human and half bat. Okay, so good to know that they're actually drawing from real lore for that, if you haven't watched what we do in the shadows.

Speaker 4 20:58

Please watch it. It's great. Please watch it, one of my favorite shows of all time.

Speaker 5 21:05

Great vampire comedy.

Speaker 3 21:07

Okay, what's, what is it against? Tell me what we do in the shadows. Okay, there's a movie and there's a TV series.

Speaker 5 21:15

We'll be putting this in the show notes with the articles. There's a movie. That's how it came out. It's originally based on a movie.

Speaker 4 21:18

Oh my goodness. Okay, just know it definitely got the sexual undertones in the show. Overtones for our listeners, so be aware of that. But it really is a very funny TV show and movie.

Speaker 4 21:32

I would assume I haven't seen the movie though, but anyway. Going back to vampire lore, so the actual vampire as we know, it didn't really become a thing until about the 18th century, and that's when we started to hear about stories of this figure with the sharp pointed teeth, with full head of hair, pale and nosferatu, yes, nosferatu, and I actually have some notes about sweet nosferatu.

Speaker 5 21:56

Okay, is nosferatu a german word it's a german movie, that's for sure.

Speaker 3 22:00

Yeah, but it's the latin name.

Speaker 5 22:01

Oh, it's a latin name there's a new nosferatu coming out at the end of the year. I heard of that it's supposed to be like horror. I meant to watch the trailer last night and I got too spooked, so I stopped.

Speaker 3 22:11

Who's in it? Who's playing Nosferatu?

Speaker 5 22:13

I don't know, I didn't get that far.

Speaker 3 22:15

Is it like? I don't know?

Speaker 5 22:16

It was scary.

Speaker 4 22:19

So I thought it'd be good to just touch on exactly what Porphyria is and then give examples of vampire descriptions from literature and also from cinema that kind of allow us to compare the actual disease and the disease presentation to this vampire lore. So porphyria is actually a disease that is due to a lack of an enzyme in the synthesis of porphyrin 9, which is the protein that combines with iron to form heme. And if you don't know what heme is the oxygen carrying molecule within a red blood cell. It's really important part of the red blood cell, right? And if you don't have porphyrin nine, you will be anemic. And what happens when you're anemic? You tend to have what's called pallor, right. So you have a very distinctive pallor. You're very white, You're very pale, you also don't feel good. You also really don't feel good. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 3 23:16

So basically to summarize that you would say you just cannot make Mature red blood cells. Red blood cells.

Speaker 4 23:22

Yeah, exactly, you can't make them. Well, at least.

Speaker 5 23:25

It's interesting, though, it is a disease that's compatible with life. Like you can live with this.

Speaker 4 23:30

These red blood cells produce this immature porphyrin and then they release it and the porphyrin gathers in the skin and what happens is when you come into contact with sunlight, it causes the porphyrin yeah, it causes the porphyrin to release free radicals and that reacts in your body to cause blistering, to cause pain, to cause scaling skin. It's really incredible. So I wrote down some of the symptoms and I'll list them off. So burning pain when exposed to light, sudden painful redness and swelling blisters on the exposed skin and then also, interestingly enough, excess hair growth in those commonly affected areas. So when you think about it, it makes sense, right, because your body's trying all it can to hide the skin from the sunlight. So it makes sense that you would grow a little bit more hair, right In those areas. That's why we have a lot of hair on our heads, right, because our heads are exposed to the most sunlight. That's cool. I think that's what I've heard.

Speaker 3 24:24

I'm not sure that was like one of the evolutionary what's what I think is kind of weirdest, and then totally sidetracking here. That's weird. I think we're the only mammalian where we have constantly growing hair. Right, every other mammal has a certain length and it stops, but like our hair, just keeps growing right, interesting, I didn't think about that.

Speaker 4 24:42

I didn't even think about that.

Speaker 5 24:43

That's interesting I always thought it was an insulation thing. If you're in the colds, then you're.

Speaker 4 24:47

You don't lose I think it is also an insulation thing, but I think another All-side purpose yes exactly that's evolution for you, okay.

Speaker 3 24:54

So, christina, I just wanted to ask you a question. So the substance porphyrin is the name, right. So that gets into the skin and stays in the skin. Yeah, does it change the color of the skin?

Speaker 4 25:05

Not necessarily no, but what it does and what it can do, is actually deposit in the teeth, and so porphyrin in the teeth will give the teeth this like reddish color, okay, and then it also, interestingly enough, causes your teeth to fluoresce under UV light. Oh, wow, I didn't know that. No-transcript when we read. Let's move on to Bram Stoker's Dracula description. Right, so this was written in 1897. And I'm just going to read a little excerpt that I wrote down.

Speaker 4 25:34

So it says the mouth was rather fixed and cruel looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. The rest of his ears were pale and the tops extremely pointed. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight and they seemed rather white and fine. So that's just a huge emphasis on his pallor, right On the paleness of his skin. And actually it was not a thing, at least in Bram Stoker's Dracula, that Dracula himself was affected by the light. That did not become a huge thing until Nosferatu came out, and so Nosferatu is what started the idea that vampires would essentially burn in the sun. What Bram Stroker's Dracula did instead was become a little bit weaker, so he was basically a regular human in the sun, and that's how he presented himself during the day, but at night he gained this like superhuman strength and became the vampire Dracula.

Speaker 5 26:29

The original is really worth reading. I really want to read it and it's not as dense as like some books written during that time period where they're like you're looking at the English and you're like, oh, this is like Frankenstein's also worth reading, but it's like in older English and it's very like it's just long exposition. It's worth reading, but Dracula is not like that. It's really it's good.

Speaker 4 26:52

I very.

Speaker 5 26:53

For me it's worth reading but Dracula is not like that. It's really. It's good. I really want to read it. After reading these excerpts, I thought it was very easy, at least for older books, to follow. It won't read like horror to you, though, because if you've seen anything with horror now, it's not scary in any way, but back in the day.

Speaker 3 27:01

Just a little bit of pop culture infusion here again. Just my opinion. Gary Oldman's performance in 1992's Bram Stoker is the best.

Speaker 5 27:10

For me the best Dracula ever you don't think it's Bela Lugosi.

Speaker 3 27:13

No, yeah, just it's my opinion.

Speaker 5 27:16

Okay, okay, I guess you can have that opinion, not like an entire goth culture has been made around Bela Lugosi's dead. It's okay, all right. All right, moving on so passionate, I see you differently now.

Speaker 4 27:31

That's hilarious, but I guess, talking about the blistering skin, going back to Porphyria and the connection to vampires and Nosferatu the main character, which I guess his name was Orlok that movie was created in 1922. Yeah, slyden movie right, yes, and the character Orlok in the end ends up burning because he spends the entire evening, essentially in the entire night by the side of this beautiful woman, instead of killing her and drinking her blood.

Speaker 5 27:59

Right Did she have TB? We'll never know. We'll never know.

Speaker 4 28:05

Because it was silent and it was probably black and white. It was handsy. Her reddish lips, yeah, we couldn't say. And so that was more of a commentary, apparently, on just the evil that Orlok himself depicted being overcome by innocence and morality. That spun future lore, essentially, and crafted this narrative of the vampire then being, incredibly like, averted to sunlight. And so that's where we get our modern day vampire that can't go out into the sun. I don't know if it's technically our modern day vampire anymore, because I think edward cullen is more the modern day vampire now they're a better modern day vampire.

Speaker 4 28:46

Now they're a better modern day vampire, but I would say the classic vampire that we all know, that that really helped shape that character and so we see a lot of those striking similarities between Porphyria and the incredibly delicate aversion to sun that those patients have with the depiction of the classic vampire that we all know.

Speaker 3 29:07

Yeah, very cool, very cool. Yeah, when did the whole bat situation evolve? Because there are bats that drink blood, but it's just a few species, right?

Speaker 5 29:18

Yeah, I have always wondered about their microbiomes. What is their microbiome? Like that they can break down blood. Like the microbiome of a leech or a vampire bat? Like that they can break down blood. It must be, I feel like it must be so unique compared to animals that are just eating like plants or like meat or something.

Speaker 3 29:32

Yeah, or it's ticks.

Speaker 5 29:34

Yeah.

Speaker 4 29:36

That's so interesting because our body, our bodies, we eat food right and we break food down for its biomolecular components that we need. You know what I mean. But bats and these animals that just drink the blood directly, like they are getting those nutrients. They don't have to really like break down anything, they just have to absorb. When you think about it, that's so interesting to me. Or at least they break down a lot less than what other animals and mammals have to break down. That's very interesting. That's something to look into. Good point, Camille. I've always been curious.

Speaker 3 30:07

Yeah. There's not that many animals that that do that? That's true, yeah, and if you see, what I always thought was really curious, the the bats that drink blood where they they have to land right and then they bite cows or something like that and they lick it up yeah, and they lick it up and they're put in a very vulnerable state on the ground right.

Speaker 3 30:26

they're obviously much better in in air or in an arboreal setting, and so they put themselves in this very vulnerable situation to access the blood. I thought it was always very curious.

Speaker 4 30:37

So they don't actually suck the blood, they just bite blood comes out and they lick it up.

Speaker 5 30:41

Wow, I did not know that they're not like mosquitoes or something.

Speaker 4 30:45

Interesting Huh. You'll learn something new every day.

Speaker 3 30:48

And correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they also have something in their saliva that makes the bite less. Like an anticoagulant, yeah, and numbs the bite side. I think I could be wrong, I don't know, I'm not sure. Interesting, wow, so cool, it's very cool. So are we going to find all the articles and all that stuff that you guys referenced in the show notes, or can you put them in the show notes, sure?

Speaker 4 31:10

Mine's really just going to be Dracula, the book by Bram Stoker, but I'll put a link there for sure. Yeah, because it's worth reading.

Speaker 3 31:17

It really is. What about you? Is your source for the Greek stuff?

Speaker 4 31:21

I'll put some. Yeah, I think one of them was a Smithsonian article, I believe, so I will definitely link that as well.

Speaker 5 31:27

Yeah, I have a couple of links to add, but there you have it.

Speaker 4 31:30

Yeah, pop culture references too that have to do with beauty standards, and then, or who's the best Dracula. I love it, but I hope that everyone enjoyed this kind of section of the podcast that we did on folklore and its connection to science and the world around us, because I thought it was fascinating to learn about these different connections for sure.

Speaker 3 31:51

Yeah, if you liked it, just let us know, drop us a line or send us a message and let us know if you want to hear more about Dracula and beauty standards and TB. And yeah, all right, thanks, guys.

Speaker 4 32:05

Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Let us know what you want to hear in the comments.

Engaging With Infectious Science Podcast

Speaker 2 32:10

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Speaker 1 32:21

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Speaker 2 32:31

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Speaker 1 32:39

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