By: Kay Slaney
In Dracula, we see our good pals/enemies, Van Helsing and Seward using a variety of unconventional practices to ward off Count Dracula. Some ways in which they ward her off is by placing a garland of garlic around Lucy, using wolfsbane, and not being able to see the Count herself in the mirror. Where did these myths of certain object’s ability to ward off vampires come from? Well, keep reading and you’ll find out!
Garlic also known as Allium sativum if you wish to use its scientific classification, is a bulbous plant that can grow up to 4 feet tall and can thrive in fairly mild climates (Bayan et. al). Now, what is pretty radical about garlic is that when garlic is chopped or crushed, an enzyme is activated which can produce allicin (Bayan et. al). I know that this sounds very boring, but allicin is terrifyingly delightful.
In 1858, Louis Pasteur (the dude who made cow milk drinkable) believed that garlic could stop the spread of infectious diseases and germs (Lawson & Bauer, 179). The reason why Louis Pasteur believed this is because bacteria cannot develop a resistance to allicin (Lawson & Bauer, 201). Even in World War II, Russian soldiers ran out of penicillin for treating wounds and would substitute garlic, nicknamed “Russian penicillin” (Petrovska & Cekovska, 2010).
Image: Diagram of a Hardneck Garlic Plant Image Source: https://www.uaf.edu/ces/garden/garlic/
Allicin can also be used in specific amounts prescribed by a medical professional and can have effects to help lower blood pressure by decreasing systolic (the blood pressure when your heart beats) and diastolic (blood pressure when your heart rests between beats) blood pressure from 6-7% (Lawson & Bauer, 198). I feel as though we can certainly say that garlic is pretty radical and has some actual medicinal effects in certain circumstances.
One way that garlic has become a staple of vampire lore is due to its relation with people who have Porphyria. Porphyria is a rare, inherited disorder that is caused by a gene mutation where “cells fail to change chemicals in your body—called porphyrins into heme, the substance that gives blood its red color. When these chemicals build up in your body, they cause illness” (NIH, 2020). A person with Porphyria may have symptoms including; mental changes such as confusion, hallucinations, and seizures (NIH, 2020).
Porphyria can also cause severe anemia and one common treatment for this type of anemia is blood transfusions (NIH, 2023). In Dracula, Seward and Van Helsing mistake the signs of Dracula’s feasting on Lucy for anemia and attempt to treat her by undergoing blood transfusions. Porphyria can also cause areas of the skin exposed to sunlight to blister and scar more easily. As we all know, vampires much dislike the sun
Image: Count Orlok getting a bad sunburn
Some people before the discovery of this illness, associated people with symptoms of Porphyria for vampires. Consuming garlic would actually increase the severity of these symptoms, so people with Porphyria would avoid it and make people believe that vampires would avoid garlic (Tauber, 2020).
One way to discover if someone is a vampire or not is if you can see their reflection in the mirror. As we know, Van Helsing cannot find the Count in the mirror. One reason why this is part of vampire lore is because someone who is facing symptoms of Porphyria or rabies will undergo drastic physical changes. Because of these changes, many people who have these diseases will refuse to look in the mirror (Tauber, 2020). Also, most mirrors before the 21st century would be constructed out of actual silver. Silver has many antimicrobial properties like garlic so it is alleged that the healing properties may have lured the hungry vampire away (Tauber, 2020).
Moving forward, another method that Van Helsing and Seward use to stop the Count is by using wolfsbane. Wolfsbane has a variety of different names, as Professor Snape once said in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Monkshood and Wolfsbane (and aconite) are indeed the same plant.
Wolfsbane belongs in the plant genus Aconitum and is a perennial plant in the Buttercup family that is native to mountains in the Northern Hemisphere (Burns, 2016). While tolfsbane is a very beautiful plant, tragically you cannot eat wolfsbane because it has very poisonous darts in its roots (Heberling, 2020).
Image: Diagram and Drawing of Wolfsbane Image Source:https://www.friendsofeloisebutler.org/pages/plants/monkshood.html
Fun facts about wolfsbane aside, this plant has a very rich history in mythology and folklore. In Ovid’s Metamorphosis, Hercules went to the underworld and fought the three-headed dog Cerberus. During this battle, some of Cerberus’ spit landed on the ground (gross) and this poisoned the ground and grew the poisonous aconite (Wolfsbane). From this Greek myth, we begin to see the connections between aconite and wolves/dogs.
Image: A very good boy named Cerberus Image Source: https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/M12.4.html
In the Dark Ages, we begin to see wolfsbane have a more supernatural element. Wolfsbane was allegedly used by witches to help them fly on a broom (Burns, 2016). I have yet to experiment with this on my own, so if any of you fly on a broom after putting it in a potion, please let me know.
Also during this time, folks scared of werewolves coming to their homes would use wolfsbane as a protection, believing that it could repel or tame a werewolf. It was also believed that if you acquired wolfsbane during a full moon, it could cause shapeshifting (Burns, 2016). As we know about our wonderful gal Dracula, she can shapeshift into virtually anything, including a wolf, and is often referred to as a werewolf. So folklore would have us believe that we could repel a vampire by utilizing wolfsbane.
All in all, iconographies in vampiric lore have a very rich and intriguing history. From the antimicrobial effects of mirrors and garlic, and association with the plant aconite with Cerebus, we learn how to defeat a vampire. Thank you all so much and I hope that you found this article interesting.
Works Cited:
Bayan, Leyla, et al. "Garlic: A Review of Potential Therapeutic Effects." Avicenna Journal of Phytomedicine, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 1-14, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4103721/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
Burns, Jacob. “Monsters, Magic, and Monkshood” Chicago Botanic Garden, October 30, 2016 https://www.chicagobotanic.org/blog/plants_and_gardening/monsters_magic_and_monkshood Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
Heberling, Mason “Wolfsbane” Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 2020 https://carnegiemnh.org/wolfsbane/ Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
Lawson LD, Bauer R. “Garlic: a review of its medicinal effects and indicated active compounds. In: Phytomedicines of Europe. Chemistry and Biological Activity.” Series 69 1. Washington DC: American Chemical Society; 1998. pp. 176–209. https://www.bigcanoe.themountainsvoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/garlic-Study_lawson1998.pdf Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
NIH (National Institute of Health) “Treatments for Blood Disorders” National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, March 24, 2022 https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/blood-bone-marrow-treatments Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
NIH (National Institute of Health) “Porphyria” National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, July 2020 https://www.niddk.nih.gov/health-information/liver-disease/porphyria Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
Petrovska, Biljana B., and Svetlana Cekovska. "Extracts from the History and Medical Properties of Garlic." Pharmacognosy Reviews, vol. 4, no. 7, pp. 106-110, https://doi.org/10.4103/0973-7847.65321 . Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.
Tauber, Jo “Booseum: Vampires” Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 2020 https://carnegiemnh.org/booseum-vampires/ Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.