Lyme Disease, caused by the bacteria Borrelia burgdorferi, is an inflammatory, usually nonfatal disease transmitted by the bite of ticks, and more specifically, Deer Ticks. These ticks live on deer, mice, dogs, and other animals. This disease has been said to be the second fastest growing epidemic of the twentieth century, behind only that of AIDS. The disease is reported worldwide, but the majority of the cases of Lyme Disease comes from the Northeast American region. It is known as the imposter of diseases because of its ability to mock certain diseases such as the flu. This is a problem physicians are faced with every time they encounter a new patient of a disease and are supposed to name it. How can it be Lyme Disease when there is no rash or site of bite? Well Lyme Disease's famous rash can heal quite rapidly and the bite can go unnoticed. Many times, the patient is diagnosed with another disease when in fact it is Lyme Disease.
             The history of this disease is quite disputed. Although the accepted date and location for the discovery of this disease is 1975 in Lyme, Connecticut, there are records of Lyme disease written over a century ago in Europe that prove its existence much earlier than the twentieth century! The first of these records dates back to 1883 in Breslau, Germany where a German physician named Alfred Buchwald described a disorder very much like Lyme Disease. In the 1909 meeting of the Swedish Society of Dermatology, a physician by the name of Arvid Afzelius presented some work on an expanding, ring-like rash which would later be proved to have come from the bite of an Ixodes tick. All throughout the twentieth century, symptoms would be identified that are in accordance with this disease. It wasn't until the 1980's when an entomologist named Willy Burgdorpher, MD, Ph.D. came across this disease first-hand. He, along with two other scientists were investigating an outbreak of Rocky Mountain spott...