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Alan Steere identified rashes like this on many adults and children.
© Durland Fish/ Fran Heyl Associates |
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* The Health Department got in touch with a doctor named Allen Steere, who was studying rheumatology at Yale University. Steere had also gained some epidemiological experience during a stint as a Public Health Service Officer, and he was intrigued.
* Steere and his colleagues identified thirty-nine children and twelve adults suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis--an astonishing number given that the disease normally affects one child in 100,000. On the basis of field studies and patient surveys, Steere found out several other significant things:
* Most cases showed up in the summertime. Since Connecticut has cold winters, this suggested either a summer virus or an infection carried by an insect or tick.
* Unlike most summer viruses, the disease didn’t seem to be particularly contagious. People in the same family often came down with it in different years.
* A quarter of the people Steere interviewed remembered getting a strange, spreading skin rash before experiencing any other symptoms. A European doctor happened to be visiting Yale at the time, and he pointed out that the rash was similar to one frequently encountered in northern Europe and known to be associated with tick bites. Most of the rashes were found somewhere on the torso, suggesting a crawling insect rather than a flying one or a spider, but no one remembered getting bitten.
* The outbreak was limited to three Connecticut townships, Lyme, Old Lyme, and East Haddam, on the east side of the Connecticut River.
* Most of the victims lived in heavily wooded areas, not in town centers.
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