See also: Hematophagy § Human hematophagy

Contracted Vampirism

Contracted vampirism, more commonly known as Imminence syndrome or Signs of Imminence syndrome, is an obsession with fulfilling a 'prophetic course'^[1] of steps associated with an illness, typically terminal due to the infected's obsession with death that follows infection. It is not known whether or not the syndrome is associated with an actual physical illness, or if the symptoms are manifested through belief^[2]. The earliest presentation of contracted vampirism in psychiatric literature was a psychoanalytic interpretation of two cases, contributed by Richard L. Vanden Bergh and John F. Kelley.^[3] As the authors point out, brief and sporadic reports of prophetic or faith-based disease behaviors associated with mental illness or obsession have appeared in the psychiatric literature at least since 1892 with the work of Austrian forensic psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing. Many medical publications concerning contracted vampirism can be found in the literature of forensic psychiatry, with the behavior being reported as an aspect of extraordinary violent crimes against oneself^[4] or coersion to commit murder of the individual ^[5].