[The author] begins his detective story in Lyme, Connecticut, with the accounts of two housewives who in the mid-1970s noticed a baffling array of symptoms afflicting members of their families and others in the community. As physicians studied this strange disease they unearthed similar symptoms that were reported long ago in other countries - such as rashes in Sweden and confusing neurological syndromes in France and Germany in the early 1900s. [His] account also unravels the medical and social issues that accompanied research efforts into this new disease as he reviews lessons learned from other baffling cases, such as the dreaded cholera outbreak in 1854 in London, and the efforts to prevent childbirth fever in Vienna in 1846. [He] chronicles how connections were ultimately established between symptoms and tick bites, leading to the discovery of the stages of the disease, its specific microbial cause, and its treatment. And he brings the story into the twenty-first century by discussing legal and legislative issues, as well as factors that have led to recent widespread outbreaks of Lyme disease and to the controversies over its diagnosis, vaccine, treatment, and even its very definition.-Dust jacket.