6 May 2008 - 19:17Porphyria

I was reading a blog called “Madness Beckons” on the origin of the vampire myth and porphyria’s connection to it.

One of the diseases that has been most misunderstood through the ages is porphyria.
This is paragraph is from Pravda.ru
This is a rare disease – only 1 in 20000 people suffers from it. The body doesn’t produce red corpuscles and thus a person’s blood lacks oxygen and iron and this leads to hemoglobin breakdown under the sunshine. Soon blisters and ulcers pop up; a person starts to have sun energy and can even die. This disease can also cause nose, ears and cartilages deformation. His fingers start to convolve; the skin around mouth gets dry and reveals gums, which turn yellowish because of porphyrine deposition on the teeth. Garlic that stimulates red corpuscles emission in the body of healthy person causes the exacerbation of symptoms among the ill people. This goes hand in hand with harsh pain, so these people also often suffer from mental disability.

The extreme cases would seem to be where the vampire / werewolf superstition originated.

This much better explanation is from the American Porphyria Foundation:
Porphyria is not a single disease but a group of at least eight disorders that differ considerably from each other. A common feature in all porphyrias is the accumulation in the body of “porphyrins” or “porphyrin precursors.” Although these are normal body chemicals, they normally do not accumulate. Precisely which of these chemicals builds up depends upon the type of porphyria.

The clinical manifestations of the different types of porphyria are not the same. Forms of treatment also depend on the type of porphyria. Therefore, it is difficult to make general statements that apply to all these disorders.

The symptoms arise mostly from effects on the nervous system or the skin. Effects on the nervous system occur in the acute porphyrias. Proper diagnosis is often delayed because the symptoms are nonspecific. Skin manifestations can include burning, blistering, and scarring of sun-exposed areas.