When Dracula was published in 1897 it was an instant success, but one built on an old legend. The strange gothic count of the novel may have been new, but the legend on which Bram Stoker built his story was decidedly not. Vampires had been around for hundreds of years, one of the motley assortment
Pellagra is a disease of which most people have never heard. It is understood today, and treatment is straightforward; in fact, nobody needs to suffer form it at all. But it deserves a mention as a historical footnote because of what it did to Europe, and as an interesting study in how legends are formed.