“Dracula” was published in 1897 by Bram Stoker, whose day job was stage manager for the D’Oyly-Carte Opera Company, producers of the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. I suppose that endless days of light-hearted drollery drove him around the bend. But “Dracula” really rehabilitated the vampire. Up until that time, the vampire was viewed essentially as a foul-smelling wild animal slaking his thirst with blood to keep alive. Sort of like an Internal Revenue Service agent, only slightly less subtle. But Dracula was no wild animal — he was a sophisticated bloodsucker. No reflection, able to crawl down walls headfirst, true, but essentially an oversexed elderly Victorian gentleman, like the character played in the movie by Bela (“I never drink wine”) Lugosi. He was a hit with the ladies, because very young girls and dirty old men with money were a Victorian staple. But he was vulnerable to crosses, garlic, and a wooden stake through the heart.

That image held up through the time that I was a boy. (You are no doubt familiar with that time period, Dear Reader. That was when everybody walked three miles to and from school, uphill both ways, barefoot, in the snow.) But that all changed in 1976, when Ann Rice, most of whose work was classy pornography (which is not an oxymoron, strangely enough), wrote “Interview with the Vampire.” Her new vampires were not old farts; they were teenagers! Especially LeStat, who played in a rock band!

Teenaged protohumans loved it. Here were characters who lived forever and stayed up all night. They really knew how to give a hickey: when it was finished, the recipients didn’t just need a little makeup; they needed a transfusion. And the vampires could induct new members into their fraternity, making their ranks swell without limit. And they could also kill anybody they wanted to.

So the dam burst as the entertainment industry spewed forth an unending torrent of bloodsucking fun, and here we are with the next generation immersed in vampire lore. The hottest movie series focuses on the love affair between a human female and her vampire boyfriend, which eventually leads to marriage. The vampires are opposed by werewolves, whose human incarnations are reminiscent of bikers. In other vampire flicks, the vampiric condition is not the result of a foul bargain with Satan, but is a blood infection, like septicimia, with the possibility of being cured (there’s a Nobel Prize in Medicine for you).

So where will this all lead?

Life imitates art. Given the explosive progress in molecular biology, we can anticipate the groundbreaking scientific article “Using Stem Cells to Create Vampires.” This discovery will be immediately commercialized, and every piercing and tatoo parlor will add a vampirization service.

But it won’t be all bad. A large number of the transformees will be teenaged boys. Do you know how much a non-vampiric teenage boy eats? You need a conveyor belt from the supermarket to your refrigerator to keep one fed. But a vampire doesn’t eat groceries – he eats the neighbors. Your food bill will drop precipitously, and the guy next store will no longer be in a position to borrow your lawnmower.

And zombie parlors can’t be far behind.