Wild Talents by Charles Fort Page B

Europe did not merely imagine that something was biting them. If somebody should like to write a book, but is like millions of persons who would like to write books, but fortunately don’t know just what to write books about, I suggest a study of scares, with the idea of showing that they were not altogether hysteria and mass psychology, and that there may have been something to be scared about.
    New York Herald, July 9—names and addresses of eleven persons, who upon one day (8th of July) had either scared their bodies into producing swellings, or had been bitten by something that the scientists refused to believe existed. And people who were bitten captured insects. Entomological News, September, 1899;—some of these insects, which were sent to the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, were house flies, bees, beetles, and even a butterfly. There are wings of vampires that lull with scientific articles. See Taboo, as represented by Dr. E. Murray-Aaron, writing in the Scientific American, July 22, 1899—nothing but sensation-mongering from Richmond, Va., to Augusta, Me.
    There was a sensational horse, in Cincinnati. His jaw swelled. Would a child, aged four, be too young for “mass psychology”? I suppose not. I am not denying that there was much mass psychology in this. Cedar Falls, Iowa—a four-year-old child bitten. Trenton, N.J.—Helen Lersch, two years old, bitten—died. Bay Shore, L.I.—a child, aged two, bitten.
    Later, I shall give instances of sizeable wounds that have appeared upon people: but, in this chapter, I am considering tiny punctures that may not have been either rat bites or insect stings. An account, in the Chicago Tribune, July 11, 1899, is suggestive of traditional vampire stories. A woman had been bitten. “The marks of two small incisors could be seen.”
    I don’t know whether I am of a cruel and bloodthirsty disposition, or not. Most likely I am, but not more so than any other historian. Or, conforming to the conditions of our existence, I am amiable-bloodthirsty. In my desire for vampires, which is not in the least a queer desire, inasmuch as I have a theory that there are vampires, I was not satisfied with the “kissing bug”: what I wanted was an account of hospital cases, not in the summer time. The insect-explanation, even though it was not upheld by Taboo, is too much at home, in the summer time. I needed an account, not in the summer time, to fill out my collection of data. Any collector will understand how pleased I was to come upon—London Daily Mail, April 20, 1920—an account of human suffering. “A number of people in country places have been bitten by some mysterious creature with a very poisonous fang. It is rare for any sort of poisonous bite or sting to occur before summer, and as a rule the culprit is known. This spring doctors have attended case after case, where the swellings have been sudden and severe, though there is little sign of the bite, itself.” I have record of several winter time cases. See La Nature, (Supplement) Jan. 16, 1897—that while filling a stove with coal, in a house in the Rue de la Tour, Paris, a concierge had felt a stinging sensation upon his arm, which swelled. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. People in the house said that they had seen gigantic wasps entering the house by way of stovepipes.
    But the most mysterious of cases of insect bites, or alleged insect bites, is that of the small wound that led to the death of Lord Carnarvon, if be accepted that his death, and the deaths of fourteen other persons, were in any especial way related to the opening, or the violation, of the tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen. Lord Carnarvon was stung by what was supposed to be an insect. What was said to be blood poisoning set in. What was said to be septic pneumonia followed.
    The stories of the “kissing bug” differ from vampire stories, in that victims were painfully wounded. But there was an occurrence in Upper Broadway, New York City, May