Not only would this statement be judged to be sexist but it also implies that blood contains a modicum of ‘character’. ‘ A brave man’s blood is the best thing on earth when a woman is in trouble’.
Not all of van Helsing’s comments would be deemed to be to be acceptable in this century e.g.
There must be transfusion of blood at once’ is appropriate. She will die from sheer want of blood to keep the heart’s action as it should be. Professor van Helsing was called in as an expert to diagnose and treat Lucy in the book, and his comment: ‘ There is no time to be lost.
Defibrination was practised prior to experimental transfusion to prevent clotting before the use of anticoagulants was in common use. Heart failure could be relieved by blood transfusion. Although the major blood groups were unknown in the 19 th century and haemolytic transfusion reactions had yet to be discovered, Stoker observed that repeated bloodletting could lead to anaemia and heart failure. It is short and beautifully written, and probably had some influence on Bram Stoker.Īs a haematologist my interest in the novel Dracula was stimulated, in part, by Stoker’s knowledge of blood transfusion. Jonathan Harker remembers this interaction, whether in a dream or reality! Interestingly Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel (another Dubliner and graduate of Trinity College) Carmilla, was a vampire novel devoted to female/female love and published before Dracula. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal… I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there’. Jonathan Harker (who probably represents ‘everyman’ in the novel) is quoted as saying: ‘ The fair girl went on her knees and bent over me, fairly gloating. Although this novel was largely concerned with the vampire legend there is also an explicit sexual connotation. The author, however, who popularised the vampire legend in the English-speaking world was Dubliner and Trinity College, graduate, Bram Stoker, through his novel Dracula Fig. A number of authors have recently suggested that the novel is a potent homo-erotic work. Mary Wollstonecraft, one of the romantic poets, is purported to have written the novel Frankenstein although some believe the author was P.B.Shelley.
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