Let us try to see this matter in historical perspective. Not until 1900, some nine years later, did Landsteiner discover the existence in man of the four basic blood groups, A, B, AB, and O, at which point in time the feasibility of transfusion without great peril for the patient may be said to have begun. Of course ever since antiquity some hardy folk have survived their enterprising physicians' attempts to transfuse blood from human to human, or even from animal to human; no doubt in many cases the survival of the patient has been due to failure of the transfusing technique to work, so that no appreciable fraction of inimical blood cells were introduced into his vascular system.
I was myself quiescent in my tomb in 1492, the year of the supposed transfusion of Pope Innocent VIII with the whole blood of three young men; therefore I cannot venture an opinion on the accuracy of that most shocking story. During a period of activity in the mid-seventeenth century I read with interest more than casual of Harvey's epochal discovery of the circulation of the blood. From time to time I continue to gather facts and learned opinions in the field. Although my own opportunities for actual research have been more circumscribed than you might think, and my natural bent is toward action rather more than intellectual affairs, still by 1891 I had accumulated some small knowledge of this subject of more than passing consequence in my own life. Had I known what Van Helsing was doing to treat a vampire's victim-as he saw the case-I would have stopped him. You may believe that I would not have callously left Lucy to her fate. But though I perceived through the continued communion of our minds that she was now definitely unwell, and suffering, I did not guess the cause.
Whether because of a fortunate compatibility between Holmwood's blood and her own, or because of some equally lucky failure of the technique to transfuse much of any blood at all, Lucy not only survived that first operation but by next day had regained something of the appearance of heath. She had been narcotized during the operation, and on waking had no clear grasp of what had happened, although of course there was the small bandaged wound upon her arm to give her food for thought. When she questioned the men who had her in their charge they lovingly told her to lie back and rest.
On the night of September ninth she suffered a relapse; or it may have been a fresh illness, some bloodborne infection from her fiance. Van Helsing's prescribed treatment for this setback was a second transfusion, this time with Seward as the donor, as the youngest and sturdiest male available at the moment. Those who wonder at the girl's surviving this second assault-and a third one, later on-at the hands of the indomitable scientist may ponder also Lower's similar operation, which was also successful or at least nonfatal, performed in London in 1667. And another in Paris in the same year, by Denis, who is documented as transfusing the blood of a lamb into the veins of a boy left anemic by conventional medical treatment-that is, bloodletting-of the time. The nineteenth century in England saw the obstetrician Blundell, and others, attempting the transfusion of blood between humans with increasing frequency, and often claiming favorable results.
But many unpublicized attempts must have been made that concluded more unhappily. And Lucy's second transfusion, from Seward-who wrote that he was much weakened by his donation-had a bad effect upon her.
As she languished in her bed-and I of course unknowingly pursued my own affairs-on September eleventh the house at Hillingham received from Holland the first of a number of shipments of garlic, including both flowers and whole plants. These of course were ordered especially by the philosopher and metaphysician, who by this time knew-though he had told no one-that a vampire was lurking about. Now, the powerful smell of Allium sativum is at least as discouraging to a suitor of my persuasion as to one of the more common sort-nay, more so, for even bland food can be disgusting to a vampire-but it is not quite the impassable barrier Van Helsing evidently hoped for. Still, had I really been intent upon effecting the poor girl's ruin, this new tactic would at least have been better than injecting her with foreign proteins.
On the night of September twelfth Mrs. Westenra, though herself semi-invalid, roused sufficiently to throw the supposedly medicinal flowers out of her daughter's room and leave the window open. Perhaps her own life was somewhat prolonged by this removal of the irritating stench of diallyl disulfide and trisulfide and the rest, but Lucy's was thought-by the doctors, at least-to suffer. One of the most advanced scientists of his day had of course omitted to tell Lucy's mother of his theories that her daughter would be better off with windows shut and stinking blooms in place. Had he spelled out all his ideas for Lucy's mother, I suppose she might have thrown the flowers out anyway, and Van Helsing with them, and we should all have been far better off. However…
Naturally Lucy's vampire visitor was blamed, by Van Helsing then, and by the whole crew later, for the continued deterioration of her condition. In fact, I was walking the streets of Whitechapel on the night the flowers were thrown out, and far into the morning; but I could have produced no witnesses. On that night I spoke with and joked with an eyewitness to one of the Ripper's shocking crimes of three years before. I believed her surprising version of that event, but I doubted that a jury would accept her word on my whereabouts or her testimony as a character witness for me.
She was welcome company, for during most of that night I walked alone and nursed a grim, post-midnight kind of thought. The first real doubts were rising in my mind as to the feasibility of my planned reunion with the mainstream of humanity. Much as I enjoyed being in London, I was being forced to the realization that my mere presence there was not changing me as rapidly as I had hoped.
On September thirteenth, as Seward recorded in his journal-which he kept, by the way, on an early variety of phonograph, nowhere near as efficient as this admirable machine into which I speak-"again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of color to the ashy cheeks…"
This time Van Helsing himself was donor, whilst Seward, at the master's direction, operated. With such an agglomeration of cells in her poor veins, it is only a wonder that the poor girl lived as long as she did.
I must now recount the events of September seventeenth, which was a most fateful day for all of us.
Jonathan and Mina Harker, fresh from being married in Budapest, where he had long lain in hospital, were now prosperously installed in a house in Exeter. Mina had now read her bridegroom's somewhat feverish journal of his stay at my castle, but the subject of vampirism had never been discussed between them, and no doubt at this point neither thought such horrors would touch their lives again.
Arthur Holmwood still watched at his dying father's bedside in Bing, with moral support from a young American named Quincey Morris, Arthur's frequent companion on hunting trips round the world, and the third of Lucy's breathing suitors.
At the asylum on that evening, Renfield, loose again, came after Dr. Seward with a kitchen knife. Seward, fortunately for himself, managed to stun his powerful antagonist with a single punch, and the madman was soon disarmed and returned to confinement.
Van Helsing, back in Antwerp on one of his habitual commuting journeys, but still commendably concerned about his patient Lucy, telegraphed to Seward that it was vital for Seward to stand guard at Hillingham that night-to guard against exactly what, Van Helsing had yet to specify. Seward of course would have un-questioningly complied, but that telegram for some fateful reason was missent. It was not delivered until it was twenty-two hours overdue.
And I myself, on September seventeenth, was visiting Regents Park. My doubts were with me, and I was resolved to work harder at being human. I sat on a convenient bench and read the Times of London for the day: