The cover of the September/October issue of Topical Time points to an article inside the issue: "The Chilling Legacy: Bram Stoker's Dracula and the Echoes of a Life" by Suman Challagulla. "Dracula" by Bram Stoker was first published on May 26, 1897, but the vampire as a handsome, aristocratic, sexually attractive figure was first described in English in 1819 by an English writer and physician, John Polidori. Below is a short piece I wrote some years ago about the fascinating events that led to his article. It appeared in "Scalpel & Tongs", the journal of the Medical Subjects Unit of the ATA.

Fred