Black Plague &quot;Vampire Skull&quot; Found in VeniceS  The
oldest remains of a person accused of being a vampire have been
found outside Venice, buried in a mass grave of plague victims.
Between 1630 and 1631, the plague killed one third of Venice's
population, wiping out 50,000 people out of a population of
150,000 in just one year. The panicked population, trying to
stop the disease from spreading, often blamed female "vampires"
for infecting the living. It was believed that people who chewed
or bit their shrouds might be vampires (a dead body might appear
to be chewing its shroud if it had post-mortem motor movements,
which is fairly common; or bloody fluid released from the mouth
after death might make it seem as if the shroud had been soiled
by vampire nastiness).  To stop these "vampires," grave diggers
would sort through bodies in mass graves and try to find ones
who had bitten their shrouds and then shove a brick in their
mouths to stop the threat. Yesterday researchers on an island
near Venice ann