15. An account of a vampire slaying in Serbia became a bestseller in 1732
The pamphlet Visum et Repertum Est (‘as seen and reported’) described attempts to kill a vampire in Medvedija, Serbia. In the report, the villages exhumed Arnold Paole 40 days after his death, and drove a stake through his heart. The corpse, which had killed 4 people and also drank the blood of livestock, shrieked. Villagers feared people who ate cattle he’d sucked dry were also now vampires, and thus 8 other corpses were burned. The report came from an Austrian army surgeon, and was thus thought credible. A month after its publication in 1732, copies were printed all over Europe…
