Shroud Eaters-AKA Vampires

I love vampire lore and movies and thought I was up to date, but here's a new one, at least to me, but then I don't get out enough.

Evidently it was a custom in 1600 Europe to stuff a brick in the mouth of a suspected vampire so they could not feed and therby starve.

These suspects were already buried, usually in a mass grave, victims of the latest plague. When the tombs were reoppenned to bury more victims, during a subsequent the plague, sometimes a gravedigger or priest thought something about the corspe didn't look right and was a vampire. One of the reasons they were suspicious is that folks of those times thought vampires had something to do with disease, in addition to their other antisocial activities.

Quite often the tipoff was a hole in the victums shroud around the mouth and (sorry) blood oozing from the mouth and the body bloated.

The scientific explaination given is that the hole around the mouth is from decay from mouth bacteria, the blood oozing from the mouth was pushed out by swelling internal organs and you know why bodies bloat as they decay.

What happened to the stake through the heart?