Bacillus Vampiris

The cause of vampirism in this book is drastically different than that of other vampire books that I have read. In “I am Legend”, vampires are created when humans are infected with bacteria. Neville manages to train himself in the uses of microscopes and other scientific instruments. When he discovers that there really are bacteria in vampire blood, the dubs the bacteria bacillus vampiris.

Neville conducts experiments in order to try to understand the nature of this bacteria and how it works. He learns that when “conditions became unfavorable for life” (76), bacilli can create spores from themselves. These spores are possibly carried, by some means, to where the bacteria can thrive again. Then the spores become like the original bacteria. With this information, Neville realizes that the dust storms that frequently occurred must have been how vampirism spread so quickly. The dust storms must have carried the spores from the comatose vampires and infected other people.

As stated earlier, this method is completely unlike that of most other novels. Other novels, generally, have a vampire transformation when a human is bitten by a vampire. This process is what makes this book more science-fiction than fantasy and creates the thought, especially with the release of the movie, that this cannot possibly be a book about vampires.