Arnold Paole
Encyclopedia
Arnold Paole was a Serbia
n hajduk
who was believed to have become a vampire
after his death, initiating an epidemic of supposed vampirism that killed at least 16 people in his native village of Meduegna (also rendered as Metwett; likely a German rendition of Serbian
Medveđa, not to be confused with the modern Southern Serbian town of Medveđa), located at the Morava river near the town of Paraćin
. His case, like the similar case of Peter Plogojowitz
, became famous because of the direct involvement of the Austrian
authorities and the documentation by Austrian physicians and officers, who confirmed the reality of vampires. Their report of the case was distributed in Western Europe and contributed to the spread of vampire belief among educated Europeans. The report and its significance for the subsequent Eighteenth century vampire controversy are nowadays explained with the poor understanding of the process of corpse decomposition
at the time.
Knowledge of the case is based mostly on the reports of two Austrian military doctors, Glaser and Flückinger, who were successively sent to investigate the case.
(Požarevac
, 1718), the Habsburg Monarchy
annexed most of Serbia
and the northern part of Bosnia
, territories which had been part of the Ottoman Empire
. These remained in Austrian control until the Treaty of Belgrade
(1739), when the Austrians were forced to cede them back to the Turks. During this 20-year period, these newly conquered boundary districts were subject to direct military rule from Vienna for strategic, fiscal
and other reasons. As a result of the devastation brought about by previous Austrian-Ottoman wars, these areas were in poor condition, with a scarce and partly nomadic population, little agriculture and an emphasis on cattle-breeding. The Austrian authorities sought to further economic development and attract German-speaking, Serbian and Bulgarian settlers to the new territories. Many of the Serbs, especially those who had immigrated from Ottoman-held areas, were recruited as militiamen (hajduk
s) for the peace-time protection of the borders and for regular military service at war, in exchange for unalienable lots of land. It was in these communities that the earliest well-documented alleged vampire attacks were attested..
-controlled part of Serbia. He reportedly often mentioned that he had been plagued by a vampire at a location named Gossowa (perhaps Kosovo
), but that he had cured himself by eating soil from the vampire's grave and smearing himself with his blood. About 1725, he broke his neck in a fall from a haywagon. Within 20 or 30 days after Paole's death, four persons complained that they had been plagued by him. These people all died shortly thereafter. Ten days later, villagers, advised by their hadnack (a military/administrative title) who had witnessed such events before, opened his grave. They saw that the corpse was undecomposed "and that fresh blood had flowed from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; that the shirt, the covering, and the coffin were completely bloody; that the old nails on his hands and feet, along with the skin, had fallen off, and that new ones had grown". Concluding that Paole was indeed a vampire, they drove a stake through his heart, to which he reacted by groaning and bleeding, and burned the body. They then disinterred Paole's four supposed victims and performed the same procedure, to prevent them from becoming vampires.
Glaser's report on the case states that by 12 December, 13 people had died in the course of 6 weeks. Glaser names the following victims (here rearranged chronologically): Miliza (Serbian Milica, a 50-year-old woman); Milloi (Serbian Miloje, a 14-year-old boy); Joachim (a 15-year-old boy); Petter (Serbian Petar, a 15-day-old boy); Stanno (Serbian Stana, a 20-year-old woman) as well as her newborn child, which Glaser notes was buried "behind a fence, where the mother had lived" due to not having lived long enough to be baptized; Wutschiza (Serbian Vučica, a 9-year-old boy), Milosova (Serbian Milosava, a 30-year-old wife of a hajduk
), Radi (Serbian Rade, a 24-year-old man), and Ruschiza (Serbian Ružica, a forty-year-old woman). The sick had complained of stabs in the sides and pain in the chest, prolonged fever and jerks of the limbs. Glaser reports that the locals considered Milica and Stana to have started the vampirism epidemic. According to his retelling, Milica had come to the village from Ottoman-controlled territories six years before. The locals' testimony indicated that she had always been a good neighbour and that, to the best of their knowledge, she had never "believed or practiced something diabolic". However, she had once mentioned to them that, while still in Ottoman lands, she had eaten two sheep that had been killed by vampires. Stana, on the other hand, had admitted that when she was in Ottoman-controlled lands, she had smeared herself with vampire blood as a protection against vampires (as these had been very active there). According to local belief, both things would cause the women to become vampires after death.
According to Flückinger's report, by the 7th of January, seventeen people had died within a period of three months (the last two of these apparently after Glaser's visit). He mentions Miliza (Milica, a 69-year-old woman, died after a three-month illness); an unnamed 8-year-old child; Milloe (Miloje, a 16-year-old boy, died after a three-day illness); Stana (a 20-year-old woman, died in childbirth after a three-day illness, reportedly said that she had smeared herself with vampire blood) as well as her stillborn child (as Flückinger observes, "half-eaten by the dogs due to a slovenly burial"); an unnamed 10-year-old girl; Joachim (a 17-year-old, died after a three-day illness); the hadnack 's unnamed wife; Ruscha (Ruža - variant of Ružica - a woman, died after a ten-day illness); Staniko (Stanjko, a 60-year-old man); Miloe (Miloje, the second victim of that name; a 25-year-old man); Ruža's child (18 days old); Rhade (Rade, a 21-year-old servant of the local hajduk corporal
, died after a three-month long illness); the local standard-bearer's (bajraktar 's) unnamed wife, apparently identical to Milošova in the other report along with her child; the 8-week old child of the hadnack; Stanoicka (Stanojka, a 20-year-old woman, the wife of a hajduk, died after a three-day illness). According to her father-in-law Joviza (Jovica), Stanojka had gone to bed healthy 15 days previous, but had woken up at midnight in terrible fear and cried that she had been throttled by the late Miloje. Flückinger states that the locals explain the new epidemic with the fact that Milica, the first to die, had eaten the meat of sheep that the "previous vampires" (i.e. Paole and his victims from five years prior) had killed. He also mentions, in passing, the claims that Stana, before her death, had admitted having smeared herself with blood to protect herself from vampires and would therefore become a vampire herself, as would her child.
Schnezzer, the Austrian military commander in charge of the administration. The latter, fearing an epidemic
of pestilence
, sent for Imperial Contagions-Medicus (roughly, Infectious Disease
Specialist) Glaser stationed in the nearby town of Paraćin
. On 12 December 1731, Glaser examined the villagers and their houses. He failed to find any signs of a contagious malady and blamed the deaths on the malnutrition
common in the region as well as the unhealthy effects of the severe Eastern Orthodox fasting
. However, the villagers insisted that the illnesses were caused by vampires. At the moment, two or three households were gathering together at night, with some asleep and others on the watch. They were convinced that the deaths wouldn't stop unless the vampires were executed by the authorities, and threatened to abandon the village in order to save their lives if that wasn't done. Failing Glaser consented to the exhumation of some of the deceased. To his surprise, he found that most of them were not decomposed and many were swollen and had blood in their mouths, while several others who had died more recently (namely Vučica, Milošova, and Rade) were rather decomposed. Glaser outlined his findings in a report to the Jagodina
commandant's office, recommending that the authorities should pacify the population by fulfilling its request to "execute" the vampires. Schnezzer furthered Glaser's report to the Supreme Command in Belgrade
(the city was then held by Austrian forces). The vice-commandant, Botta d'Adorno, sent a second commission to investigate the case.
The new commission included a military surgeon, Johann Flückinger, two officers, lieutenant colonel Büttner and J.H. von Lindenfels, along with two other military surgeons, Siegele and Johann Friedrich Baumgarten. On the 7th of January, together with the village elder
s and some local Gypsies, they opened the graves of the deceased. Their findings were similar to Glaser's, although their report contains much more anatomical detail. The commission established that, while five of the corpses (the hadnack 's wife and child, Rade, and the standard-bearer's wife and child) were decomposed, the remaining twelve were "quite complete and undecayed" and exhibited the traits that were commonly associated with vampirism. Their chests and in some cases other organs were filled with fresh (rather than coagulated) blood; the viscera were estimated to be "in good condition"; various corpses looked plump and their skin had a "red and vivid" (rather than pale) colour; and in several cases, "the skin on ... hands and feet, along with the old nails, fell away on their own, but on the other hand completely new nails were evident, along with a fresh and vivid skin". In the case of Milica, the hajduks who witnessed the dissection were very surprised at her plumpness, stating that they had known her well, from her youth, and that she had always been very "lean and dried-up"; it was only in the grave she had attained this plumpness. The surgeons summarized all these phenomena by stating that the bodies were in "the vampiric condition" (das Vampyrenstand).
After the examination had been completed, the Gypsies cut off the heads of the supposed vampires and burned both their heads and their bodies, the ashes being thrown in the Morava river. The decomposed bodies were laid back into their graves. The report is dated 26th of January 1732, Belgrade, and bears the signatures of the five officers involved.
On the 13th of February, Glaser's father, Viennese
doctor Johann Friedrich Glaser, who was also a correspondent of the Nuremberg
journal Commercium Litterarium, sent its editors a letter describing the entire case as his son had written to him about it already on the 18th of January. The story aroused great interest. After that, both reports (especially Flückinger's more detailed version) and the letter were reprinted in a number of articles and treatises.
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n hajduk
Hajduk
Hajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
who was believed to have become a vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
after his death, initiating an epidemic of supposed vampirism that killed at least 16 people in his native village of Meduegna (also rendered as Metwett; likely a German rendition of Serbian
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
Medveđa, not to be confused with the modern Southern Serbian town of Medveđa), located at the Morava river near the town of Paraćin
Paracin
Paraćin is a town and municipality in Serbia, located in the valley of the Velika Morava river, north of Kruševac and southeast of Kragujevac. In 2011 the town has total population of 24,573 and it has a civil airport, also known as Davidovac Airport....
. His case, like the similar case of Peter Plogojowitz
Peter Plogojowitz
Peter Plogojowitz was a Serbian peasant who was believed to have become a vampire after his death and to have killed nine of his fellow villagers. The case was one of the earliest, most sensational and most well documented cases of vampire hysteria...
, became famous because of the direct involvement of the Austrian
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
authorities and the documentation by Austrian physicians and officers, who confirmed the reality of vampires. Their report of the case was distributed in Western Europe and contributed to the spread of vampire belief among educated Europeans. The report and its significance for the subsequent Eighteenth century vampire controversy are nowadays explained with the poor understanding of the process of corpse decomposition
Decomposition
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms of matter. The process is essential for recycling the finite matter that occupies physical space in the biome. Bodies of living organisms begin to decompose shortly after death...
at the time.
Knowledge of the case is based mostly on the reports of two Austrian military doctors, Glaser and Flückinger, who were successively sent to investigate the case.
Background
With the Treaty of PassarowitzTreaty of Passarowitz
The Treaty of Passarowitz or Treaty of Požarevac was the peace treaty signed in Požarevac , a town in Ottoman Empire , on 21 July 1718 between the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Habsburg Monarchy of Austria and the Republic of Venice on the other.During the years 1714-1718, the Ottomans had...
(Požarevac
Požarevac
Požarevac is a city and municipality in eastern Serbia. It is the administrative center of the Braničevo District of Serbia...
, 1718), the Habsburg Monarchy
Habsburg Monarchy
The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...
annexed most of Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
and the northern part of Bosnia
Bosnia Province, Ottoman Empire
The Bosnia Vilayet was an Ottoman vilayet, mostly based on the territory of the present-day state of Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as most of Slavonia, Lika and Dalmatia in present-day Croatia. It bordered Kosovo Vilayet to the south. Before the administrative reform in 1864, it was called the...
, territories which had been part of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. These remained in Austrian control until the Treaty of Belgrade
Treaty of Belgrade
The Treaty of Belgrade was the peace treaty signed on September 18, 1739 in Belgrade, Habsburg Kingdom of Serbia , by the Ottoman Empire on one side and the Habsburg Monarchy on the other....
(1739), when the Austrians were forced to cede them back to the Turks. During this 20-year period, these newly conquered boundary districts were subject to direct military rule from Vienna for strategic, fiscal
Finance
"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
and other reasons. As a result of the devastation brought about by previous Austrian-Ottoman wars, these areas were in poor condition, with a scarce and partly nomadic population, little agriculture and an emphasis on cattle-breeding. The Austrian authorities sought to further economic development and attract German-speaking, Serbian and Bulgarian settlers to the new territories. Many of the Serbs, especially those who had immigrated from Ottoman-held areas, were recruited as militiamen (hajduk
Hajduk
Hajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
s) for the peace-time protection of the borders and for regular military service at war, in exchange for unalienable lots of land. It was in these communities that the earliest well-documented alleged vampire attacks were attested..
The first outbreak
This outbreak is only known from Flückinger's report about the second epidemic and its prehistory. According to the account of the Medveđa locals as retold there, Arnold Paole was a hajduk who had moved to the village from the TurkishOttoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
-controlled part of Serbia. He reportedly often mentioned that he had been plagued by a vampire at a location named Gossowa (perhaps Kosovo
Kosovo
Kosovo is a region in southeastern Europe. Part of the Ottoman Empire for more than five centuries, later the Autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija within Serbia...
), but that he had cured himself by eating soil from the vampire's grave and smearing himself with his blood. About 1725, he broke his neck in a fall from a haywagon. Within 20 or 30 days after Paole's death, four persons complained that they had been plagued by him. These people all died shortly thereafter. Ten days later, villagers, advised by their hadnack (a military/administrative title) who had witnessed such events before, opened his grave. They saw that the corpse was undecomposed "and that fresh blood had flowed from his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears; that the shirt, the covering, and the coffin were completely bloody; that the old nails on his hands and feet, along with the skin, had fallen off, and that new ones had grown". Concluding that Paole was indeed a vampire, they drove a stake through his heart, to which he reacted by groaning and bleeding, and burned the body. They then disinterred Paole's four supposed victims and performed the same procedure, to prevent them from becoming vampires.
The second outbreak
About 5 years later, in the winter of 1731, a new epidemic occurred, with more than ten people dying within several weeks, some of them in just two or three days without any previous illness. The numbers and the age of the deceased vary somewhat between the two main sources.Glaser's report on the case states that by 12 December, 13 people had died in the course of 6 weeks. Glaser names the following victims (here rearranged chronologically): Miliza (Serbian Milica, a 50-year-old woman); Milloi (Serbian Miloje, a 14-year-old boy); Joachim (a 15-year-old boy); Petter (Serbian Petar, a 15-day-old boy); Stanno (Serbian Stana, a 20-year-old woman) as well as her newborn child, which Glaser notes was buried "behind a fence, where the mother had lived" due to not having lived long enough to be baptized; Wutschiza (Serbian Vučica, a 9-year-old boy), Milosova (Serbian Milosava, a 30-year-old wife of a hajduk
Hajduk
Hajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
), Radi (Serbian Rade, a 24-year-old man), and Ruschiza (Serbian Ružica, a forty-year-old woman). The sick had complained of stabs in the sides and pain in the chest, prolonged fever and jerks of the limbs. Glaser reports that the locals considered Milica and Stana to have started the vampirism epidemic. According to his retelling, Milica had come to the village from Ottoman-controlled territories six years before. The locals' testimony indicated that she had always been a good neighbour and that, to the best of their knowledge, she had never "believed or practiced something diabolic". However, she had once mentioned to them that, while still in Ottoman lands, she had eaten two sheep that had been killed by vampires. Stana, on the other hand, had admitted that when she was in Ottoman-controlled lands, she had smeared herself with vampire blood as a protection against vampires (as these had been very active there). According to local belief, both things would cause the women to become vampires after death.
According to Flückinger's report, by the 7th of January, seventeen people had died within a period of three months (the last two of these apparently after Glaser's visit). He mentions Miliza (Milica, a 69-year-old woman, died after a three-month illness); an unnamed 8-year-old child; Milloe (Miloje, a 16-year-old boy, died after a three-day illness); Stana (a 20-year-old woman, died in childbirth after a three-day illness, reportedly said that she had smeared herself with vampire blood) as well as her stillborn child (as Flückinger observes, "half-eaten by the dogs due to a slovenly burial"); an unnamed 10-year-old girl; Joachim (a 17-year-old, died after a three-day illness); the hadnack 's unnamed wife; Ruscha (Ruža - variant of Ružica - a woman, died after a ten-day illness); Staniko (Stanjko, a 60-year-old man); Miloe (Miloje, the second victim of that name; a 25-year-old man); Ruža's child (18 days old); Rhade (Rade, a 21-year-old servant of the local hajduk corporal
Corporal
Corporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....
, died after a three-month long illness); the local standard-bearer's (bajraktar 's) unnamed wife, apparently identical to Milošova in the other report along with her child; the 8-week old child of the hadnack; Stanoicka (Stanojka, a 20-year-old woman, the wife of a hajduk, died after a three-day illness). According to her father-in-law Joviza (Jovica), Stanojka had gone to bed healthy 15 days previous, but had woken up at midnight in terrible fear and cried that she had been throttled by the late Miloje. Flückinger states that the locals explain the new epidemic with the fact that Milica, the first to die, had eaten the meat of sheep that the "previous vampires" (i.e. Paole and his victims from five years prior) had killed. He also mentions, in passing, the claims that Stana, before her death, had admitted having smeared herself with blood to protect herself from vampires and would therefore become a vampire herself, as would her child.
The investigation
The villagers complained of the new deaths to oberstleutnantOberstleutnant
Oberstleutnant is a German Army and Air Force rank equal to Lieutenant Colonel, above Major, and below Oberst.There are two paygrade associated to the rank of Oberstleutnant...
Schnezzer, the Austrian military commander in charge of the administration. The latter, fearing an epidemic
Epidemic
In epidemiology, an epidemic , occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is expected based on recent experience...
of pestilence
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
, sent for Imperial Contagions-Medicus (roughly, Infectious Disease
Infectious disease
Infectious diseases, also known as communicable diseases, contagious diseases or transmissible diseases comprise clinically evident illness resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism...
Specialist) Glaser stationed in the nearby town of Paraćin
Paracin
Paraćin is a town and municipality in Serbia, located in the valley of the Velika Morava river, north of Kruševac and southeast of Kragujevac. In 2011 the town has total population of 24,573 and it has a civil airport, also known as Davidovac Airport....
. On 12 December 1731, Glaser examined the villagers and their houses. He failed to find any signs of a contagious malady and blamed the deaths on the malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
common in the region as well as the unhealthy effects of the severe Eastern Orthodox fasting
Fasting
Fasting is primarily the act of willingly abstaining from some or all food, drink, or both, for a period of time. An absolute fast is normally defined as abstinence from all food and liquid for a defined period, usually a single day , or several days. Other fasts may be only partially restrictive,...
. However, the villagers insisted that the illnesses were caused by vampires. At the moment, two or three households were gathering together at night, with some asleep and others on the watch. They were convinced that the deaths wouldn't stop unless the vampires were executed by the authorities, and threatened to abandon the village in order to save their lives if that wasn't done. Failing Glaser consented to the exhumation of some of the deceased. To his surprise, he found that most of them were not decomposed and many were swollen and had blood in their mouths, while several others who had died more recently (namely Vučica, Milošova, and Rade) were rather decomposed. Glaser outlined his findings in a report to the Jagodina
Jagodina
Jagodina is a city and municipality located in central Serbia, 136 km south of Belgrade, on the banks of Belica River. Its name stems from the word for strawberry in Serbian. It is the administrative centre of the Pomoravlje District of Serbia...
commandant's office, recommending that the authorities should pacify the population by fulfilling its request to "execute" the vampires. Schnezzer furthered Glaser's report to the Supreme Command in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
(the city was then held by Austrian forces). The vice-commandant, Botta d'Adorno, sent a second commission to investigate the case.
The new commission included a military surgeon, Johann Flückinger, two officers, lieutenant colonel Büttner and J.H. von Lindenfels, along with two other military surgeons, Siegele and Johann Friedrich Baumgarten. On the 7th of January, together with the village elder
Elder (administrative title)
The term Elder is used in several different countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority...
s and some local Gypsies, they opened the graves of the deceased. Their findings were similar to Glaser's, although their report contains much more anatomical detail. The commission established that, while five of the corpses (the hadnack 's wife and child, Rade, and the standard-bearer's wife and child) were decomposed, the remaining twelve were "quite complete and undecayed" and exhibited the traits that were commonly associated with vampirism. Their chests and in some cases other organs were filled with fresh (rather than coagulated) blood; the viscera were estimated to be "in good condition"; various corpses looked plump and their skin had a "red and vivid" (rather than pale) colour; and in several cases, "the skin on ... hands and feet, along with the old nails, fell away on their own, but on the other hand completely new nails were evident, along with a fresh and vivid skin". In the case of Milica, the hajduks who witnessed the dissection were very surprised at her plumpness, stating that they had known her well, from her youth, and that she had always been very "lean and dried-up"; it was only in the grave she had attained this plumpness. The surgeons summarized all these phenomena by stating that the bodies were in "the vampiric condition" (das Vampyrenstand).
After the examination had been completed, the Gypsies cut off the heads of the supposed vampires and burned both their heads and their bodies, the ashes being thrown in the Morava river. The decomposed bodies were laid back into their graves. The report is dated 26th of January 1732, Belgrade, and bears the signatures of the five officers involved.
On the 13th of February, Glaser's father, Viennese
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
doctor Johann Friedrich Glaser, who was also a correspondent of the Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
journal Commercium Litterarium, sent its editors a letter describing the entire case as his son had written to him about it already on the 18th of January. The story aroused great interest. After that, both reports (especially Flückinger's more detailed version) and the letter were reprinted in a number of articles and treatises.
A modern scientific explanation
In fact, all of the phenomena described are characteristic of corpses at certain stages of decomposition. Ruddiness is common, non-coagulated blood is often present and may be seen escaping from the orifices, and both nails and the outer layers of the skin peel off. See Decomposition for more details.Sources
- Glaser's report in the original German
- Johann Friedrich Glaser's letter to the editors of Commercium Litterarium (also in German)
- Flückinger's report in the original German
- An English translation of Flückinger's report
- Nowosadtko, Jutta. 2004. Der "Vampyrus Serviensis" und sein Habitat: Impressionen von der österreichischen Militärgränze. In: Militär und Gesellschaft in der Frühen Neuzeit. 8 (2004). Heft 2. Universitätsverlag Potsdam. http://opus.kobv.de/ubp/volltexte/2006/675/pdf/militaer8_2.pdf