doors, lol! As far as the history of lyme according to Wikipedia:
The evolutionary history of Borrelia burgdorferi genetics has been the subject of recent studies. One study has found that prior to the reforestation that accompanied post-colonial farm abandonment in New England and the wholesale migration into the mid-west that occurred during the early 19th century, Lyme disease was present for thousands of years in America and had spread along with its tick hosts from the Northeast to the Midwest.[202]
John Josselyn, who visited New England in 1638 and again from 1663–1670, wrote "there be infinite numbers of tikes hanging upon the bushes in summer time that will cleave to man's garments and creep into his breeches eating themselves in a short time into the very flesh of a man. I have seen the stockins of those that have gone through the woods covered with them."[203]
This is also confirmed by the writings of Peter Kalm, a Swedish botanist who was sent to America by Linnaeus, and who found the forests of New York "abound" with ticks when he visited in 1749. When Kalm's journey was retraced 100 years later, the forests were gone and the Lyme bacterium had probably become isolated to a few pockets along the northeast coast, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.[204]
Perhaps the first detailed descript
ion of what is now known as Lyme disease appeared in the writings of Reverend Dr. John Walker after a visit to the Island of Jura (Deer Island) off the west coast of Scotland in 1764.[205] He gives a good descript
ion both of the symptoms of Lyme disease (with "exquisite pain [in] the interior parts of the limbs") and of the tick vector itself, which he describes as a "worm" with a body which is "of a reddish colour and of a compressed shape with a row of feet on each side" that "penetrates the skin". Many people from this area of Great Britain emigrated to North America between 1717 and the end of the 18th century.
The examination of preserved museum specimens has found Borrelia DNA in an infected Ixodes ricinus tick from Germany that dates back to 1884, and from an infected mouse from Cape Cod that died in 1894.[204] The 2010 autopsy of Ötzi the Iceman, a 5,300-year-old mummy, revealed the presence of the DNA sequence of Borrelia burgdorferi making him the earliest known human with Lyme disease.[206]
The early European studies of what is now known as Lyme disease described its skin manifestations. The first study dates to 1883 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland), where physician Alfred Buchwald described a man who had suffered for 16 years with a degenerative skin disorder now known as acrodermatitis chronica atrophicans.[207]
At a 1909 research conference, Swedish dermatologist Arvid Afzelius presented a study about
an expanding, ring-like lesion he had observed in an older woman following the bite of a sheep tick. He named the lesion erythema migrans.[207] The skin condition now known as borrelial lymphocytoma was first described in 1911.[208]
Neurological problems following tick bites were recognized starting in the 1920s. French physicians Garin and Bujadoux described a farmer with a painful sensory radiculitis accompanied by mild meningitis following a tick bite. A large, ring-shaped rash was also noted, although the doctors did not relate it to the meningoradiculitis. In 1930, the Swedish dermatologist Sven Hellerström was the first to propose EM and neurological symptoms following a tick bite were related.[209] In the 1940s, German neurologist Alfred Bannwarth described several cases of chronic lymphocytic meningitis and polyradiculoneuritis, some of which were accompanied by erythematous skin lesions.
Carl Lennhoff, who worked at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, believed many skin conditions were caused by spirochetes. In 1948, he used a special stain to microscopically observe what he believed were spirochetes in various types of skin lesions, including EM.[210] Although his conclusions were later shown to be erroneous, interest in the study of spirochetes was sparked. In 1949, Nils Thyresson, who also worked at the Karolinska Institute, was the first to treat ACA with penicillin.[211] In the 1950s, the relationship among tick bite, lymphocytoma, EM and Bannwarth's syndrome was recognized throughout Europe leading to the widespread use of penicillin for treatment in Europe.[212][213]
In 1970, a dermatologist in Wisconsin named Rudolph Scrimenti recognized an EM lesion in a patient after recalling a paper by Hellerström that had been reprinted in an American science journal in 1950. This was the first documented case of EM in the United States. Based on the European literature, he treated the patient with penicillin.[214]
/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_diseaseAnd the article goes on (scroll down toward to bottom of the article to read about
the history).
I find it interesting that lyme has been around forever because that makes sense to me as nature does what it does. Ticks and other vectors carrying lyme bacteria are part of nature as well as the white footed mouse that is the "host" of lyme bacteria (one can google that).
That said I rather live in the "now" instead of the past. I enjoy researching illnesses, ailments (not all lyme related) that pertain to people I care about
.
Denise