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Lyme Disease Lyme disease was first found in a group children in Lyme, Connecticut. Symptoms and enviromental conditions suggested that the disease was transmitted by an arthropod, deer ticks. Further investigation into the cause of the disease showed that it is caused by a bacterium, Borrelia burgdorfei. Physicians actually first observed this disease in the early twentieth century, in Europe, when patients with a red, slowly expanding rash, which was associated with ticks, started to appear. The physicians proposed that it was caused by a bacteria. In the 1940's physicians began to treat this kind of rash with penicillin. Then in the mid-1970's, physicians observed a group of children with arthritis. Researchers found that the use of penicillin shortened the duration of the rash and also reduced the risk of subsequent arthritis. In 1984, evidence was found that the B. burgdorferi caused Lyme disease when it was cultured from the blood of patients from the rash area. Lyme disease was nationally notifi