1. Dr. Ebenezer Sibly's Re-Animating Solar Tincture

First things first, the aspiring undead must, of course, return to life. I say “life,” but it is sufficient — indeed, preferable — to aim for a state of undeath, keeping your audience oblivious to the cruelty of suffering that permeates your motionless heart.

Ideal for this situation is Dr. Ebenezer Sibly’s Re-Animating Solar Tincture, a late 18th century innovation that remained on sale well into the 1870s and claimed that “... if the blood can be re-agitated, and its circulation resumed, life will of necessity be restored.”

Dr. Sibly (1751-c.1799) was a British astrologer and physician who wrote extensively on the occult sciences and medicine. He recommended the Solar Tincture against all cases of apparent death, including “blows, fits, falls, suffocation, strangulation, drowning, apoplexy, convulsion fits, thunder and lightning, assassination, duelling, or the like.”

Perhaps anticipating scepticism, Sibly invited his readers to experiment upon “a fowl, lamb, cat, dog, or any animal, by plunging them under water until they are apparently dead, or piercing them through the head, or any part of the body except the heart; by suffocation, or an electrical shock.” The unfortunate creature was then to be restored to health by the tincture. Proof indeed that such a medicine must be of service to the would-be vampire!

Note: Do not be alarmed by the word “solar.”