Serology Experiment BC1 was the formal name given to the medical treatments designed by Dr Julia Hoffman for Barnabas Collins' vampirism. The experiment involved the study of Barnabas' blood before and after the injection of a special serum designed by Dr. Hoffman.
Premise[]
Dr Hoffman was brought to Collinsport in 1990 to study a mysterious destructive cell that had been found in the blood samples of victims of a series of violent attacks in the district. She treated Daphne Collins, the only survivor of the attacks, and developed a blood serum which began to eliminate the cell from Daphne's system over a series of injections (1).
When Dr Hoffman heard the theory that the attacker was a vampire, she hypothesized that her serum might have an equally powerful affect on the vampire itself: curing it of its vampirism altogether by eliminating the destructive cell from its blood. After discovering that the vampire was Barnabas Collins, she approached him with her idea for the treatment of his condition. After appealing to his desire to live a normal life, Dr Hoffman convinced Barnabas to cooperate (2).
Experiment[]
Dr Hoffman planned to divide Barnabas' twelve week treatment into separate control groups, each representing an individual injection into his blood. Before each injection, she drew a sample of his blood for comparison and study (3).
Before the initial treatment, Dr Hoffman drew a baseline sample of the completely vampire blood in Barnabas's body. She warned Barnabas that the treatment itself could be highly toxic to his system, and the first injection was extremely painful for Barnabas for several seconds (3).
Dr Hoffman then began studying the effects of the sun's rays on the baseline sample in her laboratory at Collinwood. After each injection, she tested the new blood sample's resistance to the sun next to the baseline sample. When affected by the sun, the vampire blood would bubble and shatter its test tube, turning to red dust (3).
Julia kept a hand-written record of the experiment in a notebook in her lab at Collinwood. She also stored all of Barnabas' blood samples in a refrigerator there, though the treatments themselves were administered at the Old House (3).
Results[]
Dr Hoffman noted by week 10 of the experiment, now into 1991, that while Barnabas' blood was still vulnerable to the sun, its resistance was growing. She suggested an additional experiment to Barnabas around this time and had him look into a mirror. As a result of the treatments, he had a reflection for the first time in two hundred years (3).
After nearly attacking Victoria Winters for her blood, Barnabas demanded that the experiment be accelerated so that he could see the sun the following morning. Julia reluctantly agreed, and Barnabas witnessed his first sunrise in two centuries under Julia's observation. She placed a blood sample from Barnabas in the sunlight as well and used it to gauge his exposure. When the sample began to bubble, Julia demanded to pull the drapes, but Barnabas remained in the sun too long and became extremely ill. Moments later, Professor Michael Woodard, Sheriff George Patterson, and Roger Collins arrived to question Barnabas about the vampire attacks, but Barnabas was again able to endure the sunlight long enough to convince the men to leave. He was, however, incapacitated for the rest of the day (3).
Barnabas later attacked (3) and killed Michael Woodard, turning him into a vampire, for his interference in his affairs, but this did not noticeably impede the progress of the experiment. Barnabas was able to spend limited amounts of time in the sunlight and noted that the injections were getting easier to endure. He stated that they even had a calming effect on him (4).
Failure[]
Barnabas and Julia were both to blame for the overall failure of the experiment. Barnabas urged Julia to rush the treatments so that he could marry Victoria Winters as a normal human, and Julia, jealous of Barnabas' relationship with Victoria, began to sabotage the experiment by diluting the potency of the blood serum. Barnabas found himself trapped between the life of a regular human and a vampire, and, upon discovering Julia's deception, demanded that she give him one more massive injection to complete the treatments. Julia reluctantly complied, and Barnabas aged rapidly to his true appearance of over two hundred years old. In desperation, he attacked Carolyn Stoddard, and her blood reversed the ageing process and restored his normal youthful appearance. To his dismay, Barnabas found that the attack, coupled with the massive injection, had reverted him fully to his original state as a vampire, effectively neutralising the effects of the serum (5).