” ‘Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to find that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might idefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital poweres by the assimilation with my own body of his life by the medium of his blood - relying, of course, upon the scriptural phrase, “For the blood is the life.” Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarized the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn’t that true doctor?’ I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what I ought to think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before.”
-Dr. Seward’s diary entry regarding the dialogue of patient Renfield, Bram Stoker, “Dracula”.
