Legends about vampires and werewolves still live today

The first study of vampirism was conducted in the 18^th century. The history of Serbian peasant Peter Plogojewitz that happened to him in 1725 is the most well-known documented instance of vampirism. The respectable peasant died in 1725 at the age of 62 and was buried in accordance with the local tradition. In two months after the burial nine people living in that village died of some strange disease within eight days. At that, each of the deceased said that a day before the dead Peter had come to visit them. Peter’s widow did not trust the stories until one night her dead husband started knocking on the door and demanding that the woman must give him her shoes. The poor woman was terribly scared and next morning fled from the village for ever.

	Legends about vampires and werewolves still live today
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Locals decided to disinter the dead body to conduct an investigation of the incident. Military men and the priest from the place were invited for an expertise. When exhumed the dead body of Peter seemed quite intact, the dead man had nails and hair longer than at the moment of burial, the skin looked quite fresh but slightly pale and there were stains of blood in the mouth. Locals insisted that the heart of the dead man must be pierced through with an aspen stake. And a fountain of fresh blood rushed out from Peter’s mouth right at the moment when the body was pierced through with the stake. While locals were burning the dead body of the vampire a military man who was in command of the exhumation wrote a detailed report for his army commanders. Soon, the report was published in the leading newspapers all over the world.

The scary publication gave rise to a war against vampires in Europe. People in all villages suspected at least one of the neighbors of being a bloodsucker; people exhumed dead bodies out from their graves to pierce the dead bodies with stakes to make sure that they would not turn into vampires. That was a real hysteria, and authorities in many countries charged doctors with an official investigation of all mysterious instances to provide a documented confirmation or denial of vampire existence.

In 1746, French theologian Antoine Augustine Calmet published a treatise on all instances of vampirism in Europe he knew. He also cautiously supposed in this work that vampires were probably no myth but the reality. The authority of the theologian was so great that the society immediately stated that existence of vampires was a scientifically proven fact.

The vampire hunting slightly abated in 1768 when Austrian doctor Gerhard Van Sweeten published his work saying that no vampires existed, and all known instances of alleged vampirism could be explained from a scientific point of view.

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