The discovery of Lyme disease

Summary

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Witness History: The Discovery of Lyme Disease

Podcast: Witness History
Host: Reena Stanton Sharma
Date: June 19, 2026
Duration: ~9 minutes

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Overview

This episode of Witness History revisits the landmark medical discovery of Lyme disease in the United States during the mid-1970s. Through the recollections of Polly Murray—a determined mother from Lyme, Connecticut—and insights from pioneering rheumatologist Dr. Alan Steere, the episode vividly traces the disease's mysterious emergence, the community’s struggles, and the scientific breakthroughs that followed. Eye-witness testimony and archival audio capture the confusion, persistence, and eventual triumph in identifying and treating a disease that would become globally recognized.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. An Unusual Outbreak in Lyme, Connecticut

• Polly Murray’s Family Crisis

  • Polly Murray describes how her family began experiencing unexplained symptoms—rashes, joint pain, severe headaches, stiff necks, and fevers—shortly after moving to Lyme, Connecticut ([00:51], Polly Murray).
  • “Our family have lived in lime in this area for 25 years...I started having some odd symptoms, as some of the others in the family did...mostly it was my symptoms in the beginning, with rashes and joint pain and severe headaches and stiff necks and fevers.” ([00:51], Polly Murray)

• Community Patterns Emerge

  • Persistent and patterned symptoms across several families prompt Murray to approach the Connecticut State Health Department ([01:33], Polly Murray).

2. Medical Investigation and Early Theories

• Dr. Alan Steere’s Involvement

  • Dr. Steere, newly arrived at Yale in 1975, is drawn into the investigation after Murray’s call ([02:12], Dr. Alan Steere).
  • He discovers an abnormally high rate of juvenile arthritis—39 children in a small community, “100 times what one would expect” ([02:54], Dr. Alan Steere).
  • “That’s completely unheard of.” ([02:54], Dr. Alan Steere)

• Seeking Patterns and Clues

  • Murray becomes convinced the disease is more than just juvenile arthritis, noticing her symptoms worsened in summer ([03:32], Reena Stanton Sharma).
  • Steere observes that unusual skin lesions precede joint pain in some children; the cluster’s seasonality and symptoms suggest an arthropod (tick) connection ([04:00], Dr. Alan Steere).

3. Connecting Ticks to Disease Transmission

• Environmental Clues

  • The BBC documentary notes a surge in the local deer population, paralleling a rise in tick numbers and human disease ([04:51], BBC Narrator).

• Mechanics of Transmission

  • The ticks transmit the infection by feeding on deer and then biting humans, often unnoticed ([04:35], Reena Stanton Sharma).

4. The Breakthrough: Treatment & Proof

• Antibiotic Therapy

  • European research points to similar tick-borne diseases responsive to penicillin ([05:19], Reena Stanton Sharma).
  • Dr. Steere trials penicillin treatment, finding it accelerates resolution of skin lesions and prevents secondary arthritis ([05:29], Dr. Alan Steere).
  • “From this we learned that this was likely a tick transmitted penicillin sensitive agent that was causing this illness.” ([05:29], Dr. Alan Steere)

• Scientific Humility

  • Dr. Steere reflects on the complexities of disease: “You’re often left with a part of the population that just has a harder time with it.” ([06:59], Dr. Alan Steere)

5. Identification and Naming of Lyme Disease

• Naming

  • The disease is officially named after the town where it was first identified: Lyme, Connecticut ([07:17], Reena Stanton Sharma).

• Discovery of the Causative Agent

  • In 1981, entomologist Willy Burgdorfer finds the responsible bacterium, later named Borrelia burgdorferi ([07:33], Dr. Alan Steere).

6. Outcomes and Ongoing Challenges

• Patient Recovery and Rare Fatalities

  • Most children from the original outbreak recovered fully; some, as adults, faced lingering effects ([08:06], Reena Stanton Sharma; [08:11], Dr. Alan Steere).
  • Serious cases, though rare, can be fatal if the infection affects the heart or goes untreated ([08:11], Dr. Alan Steere).
  • “Death from Lyme disease is quite unusual, but it can happen.” ([08:11], Dr. Alan Steere)

• Continued Complexity

  • Dr. Steere stresses that aspects of Lyme disease remain unresolved and require ongoing research ([08:56], Dr. Alan Steere).
  • “One is still left with parts of this that are difficult to understand...An important goal for me is really to work with the next generation.” ([08:56], Dr. Alan Steere)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Polly Murray, on the initial mystery:
  “Her symptoms became so acute and the patterns so definite that I realized that we must do something about trying to find someone that would do some research into what was going on.” ([01:33])

• Dr. Steere, on the scale of the outbreak:
  “We were able to identify 39 children in this small community who had recently had or currently had arthritis...That’s completely unheard of.” ([02:54])

• Dr. Steere, on medical breakthroughs:
  “From this we learned that this was likely a tick transmitted penicillin sensitive agent that was causing this illness.” ([06:32])

• On humility in science:
  “Understanding human disease is often very complicated. And even though you can come up with a treatment that helps most people, you’re often left with a part of the population that just has a harder time with it.” ([06:59], Dr. Alan Steere)

• On ongoing scientific curiosity:
  “One is still left with parts of this that are difficult to understand, in which we do not have treatments that work really well. An important goal for me is really to work with the next generation.” ([08:56], Dr. Alan Steere)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:51 – Polly Murray describes first symptoms.
• 01:33 – Polly takes action, reaches out to health authorities.
• 02:12 – Dr. Steere joins the investigation.
• 02:54 – Unprecedented cluster of juvenile arthritis.
• 04:00 – Skin lesions and the arthropod hypothesis.
• 04:51 – Environmental context: deer and tick population boom.
• 05:29 – Adoption of penicillin therapy.
• 07:17 – Official naming of Lyme disease.
• 07:33 – Discovery of Borrelia burgdorferi.
• 08:11 – Rare but serious complications.

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Tone

The episode maintains an empathetic and inquisitive tone, blending the urgency and confusion of a medical mystery with quiet optimism and scientific humility. First-person accounts ground the narrative in lived experience, making it accessible and compelling for all listeners.

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This episode offers a concise but powerful look at how observation, persistence, and community action led to the identification—and treatment—of a major disease. Through authentic voices and careful archival storytelling, Witness History provides both historical context and emotional resonance for listeners curious about science, disease, and discovery.

Transcript

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

Hi, this is the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service. I'm Reena Stanton Sharma. If you've been here before, you can skip the next few seconds. We're the podcast that brings history to life by hearing from those who are there using Incredible Archive. Episodes are just nine minutes long and come out every weekday. If that appeals to you, why not subscribe and turn your push notifications on so you never miss an episode for the fascinating story I've got for you today. We're going back to 1975, when an unusual outbreak of illness among young children in the United States led to the discovery of a new disease.

[Polly Murray]

Our family have lived in lime in this area for 25 years, and when we first moved here, I started having some odd symptoms, as some of the others in the family did. But mostly it was my symptoms in the beginning, with rashes and joint pain and severe headaches and stiff necks and fevers.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

That's Polly Murray, a mother from Lyme, Connecticut, a scenic rural town nestled along the eastern banks of the Connecticut river on America's east coast. Speaking to a BBC TV program in 1987, she explained what she'd noticed.

[Polly Murray]

Her symptoms became so acute and the patterns so definite that I realized that we must do something about trying to find someone that would do some research into what was going on. And so In October of 1975, I called Connecticut State Health Department.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

That call would eventually lead to the first identification of Lyme disease in the US A bacterial infection passed to humans by blood sucking parasites called ticks. Professor Alan Steere had started a fellowship at Yale University just months earlier when he was contacted by the health department. This led to a meeting with Polly.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

She'd kept a notebook about children that she knew of in this small community who had developed arthritis. I asked my chief of rheumatology about this and said that I would like to join in working on this cluster of arthritis cases. And he said, fine, take about six months and see what you can do. And of course, I've been working on this now for nearly 50 years.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

Dr. Stier, who was in his early 30s, had been carrying out research into rheumatology, inflammatory conditions, including rheumatoid arthritis, which, which causes painful and stiff joints.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

We invited the children to come to Yale for investigation. We were able to identify 39 children in this small community who had recently had or currently had arthritis. And that would be 100 times what one would expect for juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, which is how the children had originally been diagnosed, often a quarter of them lived on one of two roads where 1 in 10 children had arthritis. That's completely unheard of.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

Polly and her children had seen over 30 doctors who'd suggested 50 possible diagnoses. But she was convinced there was more to it. She'd noted down that she felt worse during the summer. Dr. Steere found that the young people, who ranged from around five years old to teenagers, had had unusual skin markings or lesions which started appearing before their joint problems. One person described it this way, that

[Dr. Alan Steere]

it started in the front of their body and the two sides met on the back. So this large, spreading, unusual skin lesion, it was a quarter of the patients. But because the clustering suggested to us an arthropod transmitted illness, we were quite interested in this skin lesion. An insect is a type of arthropod. An arthropod is a more general term, but a tick is an arthropod because in the adult stages it has eight legs rather than six.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

And a tick is a small spider like creature which feeds on the blood of birds, mammals and humans. You may not even feel a bite, which can cause flu like symptoms. Here's that BBC documentary.

[BBC Narrator]

The tick usually feeds on white tailed deer and in 1975 there'd been a big increase in the deer population with a consequent rise in the number of ticks. Perhaps there was a link with the severe arthritis that Polly Murray's family had suffered that summer. The ticks were feeding on blood from the deer, then dropping back to the ground to lay their eggs and to bite unsuspecting humans. Treating these bites was to reveal an important new clue about the cause of the arthritis.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

After this crucial discovery, Dr. Steer spoke with a Danish colleague and realised that they could treat people with penicillin antibiotic medication.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

In Europe, this skin lesion was thought to be tick transmitted and that skin lesion was thought to respond to antibiotic therapy. And there were a few cases in which the skin lesion had preceded a neurologic illness called meningo polyneuritis or Banwort syndrome. But it wasn't truly clear that it was related. And the neurologists thought that the skin lesion was a viral infection, most likely. And because of the experience in Europe, thinking that this skin lesion responded to antibiotic therapy, we began to treat patients with penicillin, which had been used generally to treat the skin lesion. And in comparison with the patients we'd seen earlier who were not treated with antibiotics, the skin lesion did resolve somewhat faster and it often prevented subsequent Arthritis. From this we learned that this was likely a tick transmitted penicillin sensitive agent that was causing this illness.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

This was a huge breakthrough. Not only had he discovered a new disease, they'd found a potential treatment too. But Dr. Stier, who is now one of the most renowned rheumatologists globally, remains humble about that vital step in medicine.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

That's gratifying. But understanding human disease is often very complicated. And even though you can come up with a treatment that helps most people, you're often left with a part of the population that just has a harder time with it.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

You've probably joined the dots. The disease was named after the town. Polly was from Lyme, Connecticut where it was first found. And then in 1981, a self described tick surgeon discovered something new.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

It was Willy Wergdorfer who had been studying this Ixodes scapularis type of tick. And his particular ability was to dissect even these very small ticks under the microscope and be able to look at their organs, trying to see if he could identify an infectious agent. And he was the one who actually first saw this bacteria, which is now called. Its Latin name is Borrelia burgdorferi.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

Most of the children who took part in that 1975 study fully recovered.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

There are children that as adults had taken difficulty with what remained of certain parts of the infection. It's generally not as serious an infection at all if one has vaccination. Death from Lyme disease is quite unusual, but it can happen. The infection can affect all layers of the heart. And if that happens and it's not recognized, it's been a cause of death and generally in younger people. So it can be quite a serious infection, even though most recover from it.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

Understanding these complexities remains Dr. Stier's lifelong passion.

[Dr. Alan Steere]

One is still left with parts of this that are difficult to understand, in which we do not have treatments that work really well. An important goal for me is really to work with the next generation.

[Reena Stanton Sharma]

Witness History from the BBC World Service was presented by me, Reena Stanton Sharma. If you like this story, you might enjoy a very different one I made about an Indian film. Just search for how Rung the Basanthi inspired a generation. But before you check that out, please leave us a review and make sure you hit subscribe. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.

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