Dracula
Professor Van Helsing
The vampire hunter
A Dutch physician and philosopher who recognizes the vampire when no one else will, and leads the hunt with garlic, crucifixes and sacred wafers.
Professor Abraham Van Helsing is about sixty, with silver-gray hair, bushy eyebrows and round spectacles. He is Dr. Seward's old teacher from Amsterdam, a man of deep learning who is a little eccentric and fiercely determined. He speaks gravely, sometimes in German, and keeps garlic, crucifixes and consecrated Host in the pockets of his coat.
He is the first to look at Lucy's two small throat marks and say that this is no common illness. Van Helsing believes in evidence and in faith, and treats the supernatural as something to be studied and defeated. He is kind to those he protects, but hard on himself and on anyone who delays the work.
“Mein Gott... she is white as marble. This is no common illness.”
In the story
Contains spoilers.
Seward calls him to London to save Lucy. He arranges blood transfusions and fills her room with garlic, but Dracula still reaches her. After her death, he takes Seward to her empty tomb, drives the monster back with a crucifix, and guides Arthur's hand when Lucy must be set free.
He then unites the six allies, lays out the rules of the vampire's strength and weakness, and plans the destruction of the earth boxes. He protects Mina at Borgo Pass with a circle of Communion wafers, enters the castle crypt at dawn to destroy the three brides, and stands on the cliff with Mina as the others close in on Dracula.
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