Melanie Reber
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 3707
posted
Disguised as the Devil- New Book Links Witch Accusations with Lyme Disease
Was the Devil's Mark that was found in the past on the skin of accused witches really the Bull's Eye Rash found on modern Lyme disease victims? This question intrigued M. M. Drymon, a historian who lives in Maine. While most historians have focused their interests on the Salem Witch hunt as a religious and social event, Drymon looks for the first time at the landscape and environment where people from the past were living, and interacting with, on a daily basis.
Focusing on settlement in 17th century Massachusetts and based on the actual words and descriptions of the people who were there, a virtual walk through this past reveals a world that is at once both familiar and unlike any that we know today.
The forests are filled with the squealing pigs and a 1621 cross-country trek becomes a bizarre experience along unbeaten paths rimmed by six-foot tall weedy overgrowth that is punctuated only by abandoned huts that are sometimes still occupied by the bleached bones of not long dead Native Americans.
People are found participating in cultural practices that have been almost forgotten. Deer are described as being ``abound,'' and it is difficult to see how there could not be members of the Ixodes tick species lurking within this setting. Women sweep through this world in their long skirts and accidentally participate in a tick acquisition technique now called flag collecting. People find pins stuck into their skin.
Both accused witches and their supposed victims develop red marks on their bodies and some suffer from neurological symptoms. A prolonged drought afflicts war torn Massachusetts throughout the 1680's. Moreover, the Devil himself may be lurking nearby, just around any corner. Did the afflicted children of Salem suffer from Lyme disease in1692? Drymon hoped to find answers in the written records of the past.
By looking back to Europe, for example, a statistical association was found between the intensity of witch-hunts and the level of infection with the Lyme disease bacteria in modern Ixodes ticks. There were also parallels between the perceptions of patients who exhibit chronic symptoms and the way that some of the physicians who try to help them are treated- some have them been subjected to a modern version of a witch-hunt.
Drawing upon the latest in scientific and historical research, Disguised as the Devil: How Lyme Disease Created Witches and Changed History (Wythe Avenue Press, $24.95) will become essential reading for those who are interested in the history of Lyme disease and those who study the etiology of the witch.
It tells a compelling tale about the timeless importance of the interactions between humanity and the ``invisible world'' of bacteria.
posted
wow! This is so interesting... I want to read this!!
-------------------- "You'll be surprised to know how far you can go from the point you thought it was the end" Posts: 946 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2008
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Melanie Reber
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 3707
posted
I know...it does look fascinating to me too. I went searching for it, but it hasn't been released yet. Here is more information:
###
Author: M. M. Drymon
Titile: Disguised as the Devil: How Lyme Disease Created witches and Changed History
Publisher: Wythe Avenue Press
Anticipated Publication Date: July 15, 2008
Price: $24.96
296 Pages
ISBN 978-0-6152-0061-3 LC 2008926184
Includes illustrations, bibliographical references and index
It IS available on Amazon.com now as an electronic Kindle wireless thing for $7.99. But first you need the Kindle thing which is a tad more... Posts: 7052 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
doesn't anyone think how ironic this is with the way our doctors are treated?
-------------------- This is NOT medical advice - and should NOT be used to replace your MD's advice. Info is only the opinion of those who publish the site.
The shortest way to do many things is to do only one thing at a time.
cb Posts: 669 | From somewherebetweentherocks | Registered: Mar 2008
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AliG
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Member # 9734
posted
Very interesting concept.
I wonder if their "potions" were actually attempts at alternative cures.
Perhaps they were actually unleashing infected ticks on people that gave them problems?
Hmmmm.....
-------------------- Note: I'm NOT a medical professional. The information I share is from my own personal research and experience. Please do not construe anything I share as medical advice, which should only be obtained from a licensed medical practitioner. Posts: 4881 | From Middlesex County, NJ | Registered: Jul 2006
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luvs2ride
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 8090
posted
if so, this cancels out the Plum Island theory that Lyme Disease began in a lab at Plum Island.
-------------------- When the Power of Love overcomes the Love of Power, there will be Peace. Posts: 3038 | From america | Registered: Oct 2005
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posted
I dont think it cancels it out. I think it just says that we have had this around longer than we thought. I also beleive that they used this on plum Island...but it was something we already had maybe??
-------------------- "You'll be surprised to know how far you can go from the point you thought it was the end" Posts: 946 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2008
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Geneal
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 10375
posted
I always said my other car is a broom.
Seriously though. I believe that Lyme disease has been around for a very long, long time.
That isn't to say the disease hasn't been "tweaked".
I doubt we will ever know.
Hugs,
Geneal
Posts: 6250 | From Louisiana | Registered: Oct 2006
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quote:Originally posted by Geneal: I believe that Lyme disease has been around for a very long, long time.
That isn't to say the disease hasn't been "tweaked".
Exactly. Since I've had it most of my long life, I knew it didn't begin with Plum Island, but the germ may have been tweaked, as Geneal said.
This is really interesting. I don't want to have anything to do with witches, but exploring the possbility of a connection with Lyme disease is REALLY intriguing.
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96222 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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quote:Originally posted by njlymemom: doesn't anyone think how ironic this is with the way our doctors are treated?
From above...."There were also parallels between the perceptions of patients who exhibit chronic symptoms and the way that some of the physicians who try to help them are treated- some have them been subjected to a modern version of a witch-hunt."
-------------------- --Lymetutu-- Opinions, not medical advice! Posts: 96222 | From Texas | Registered: Feb 2001
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
NOT FOR ME!!
Me don't like stories about devils and black magic. Uuuuueeee!
I'd rather believe it was around for millions of years... like the fossil embedded termite with Borrelia in its mid-gut shows us.
And now that we know the cause of many maladies we can get people help.
sparkle7
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 10397
posted
This is ridiculous... I grew up in the northeast & my mother was born in Massachusetts in the 1920's. Lyme Disease was a non-issue until I was about 20 (back in the late 1970's - 1980's).
Many people do not get a bull's eye rash - like myself.
This is pure speculation & more like an inventive fantasy about witches, disease, & Salem. I think you need to do more research to put this into perspective.
I think if the writer were really interested, he would exhume remains & have gene tests done... even then would he really know? I had 2 ELISA tests & a Western Blot & they were all negative... The tests are not accurate.
I don't want to be disrespectful - but this is not what happened. This is a "PR" website. Someone is looking for some bucks by selling a fictional book.
Posts: 7772 | From Northeast, again... | Registered: Oct 2006
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posted
I believe we have had these illnesess around A LOT longer than we think. Maybe it didnt become PROMINENT until the 70's, but that DOESN"T mean it wasn't there before. People in that time were coming down with many strange illnesess. I dont' think it should be completey discounted.
Bacterial infections didn't just start in 1970, bacteria have been on the earth since man, even before.
Thats my opinion!
-------------------- "You'll be surprised to know how far you can go from the point you thought it was the end" Posts: 946 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2008
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Dawnee
Unregistered
posted
Oh wow this is right up my alley... Id love to read it!
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sparkle7
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 10397
posted
re: "Maybe it didnt become PROMINENT until the 70's, but that DOESN"T mean it wasn't there before."
I guess this means that the Native Americans living on the continent had Lyme, too. I wonder why they haven't written a book on Native American cures for Lyme so they could get paid, too?
Why do people just assume that European settlers were the only people living on the American continent?
This is a silly idea if you really give it some thought... I'm not saying that various bacteria didn't exist but I don't think Lyme became a public health problem here until the 1970's.
There would have been much more history about Lyme in the Northeast if this was the case. No one I knew ever had a problem with this when I was growing up in NJ. It was just not part of the experience of growing up or living in this area prior to 1970.
Maybe you people don't know because you aren't from this region... It's pure revisionist history or fiction. People make stuff up all the time.
I'm not one to prejudge concepts & ideas but this one is very far fetched.
Posts: 7772 | From Northeast, again... | Registered: Oct 2006
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Melanie Reber
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posted
I think the point worth emphasizing here is that Tick-borne diseases have been around for at least as long as we have had written history.
And, as others have written, they have also been around for eons before that according to fossil records.
I take it that this book is only trying to connect dots between symptoms of people living in the New England area, with possible tick-borne disease symptoms.
To me...that is NOT far fetched, and actually makes a lot of sense.
Just because we did not have an accepted 'medical' label for a cluster of symptoms back then, does not automatically mean that what was being experienced by those people could not have been Lyme or another TBD.
What we DO have is an accepted 'historical' label... Witches.
I find it hard to completely accept that a wave of Christian women all of a sudden became 'witches' within a community. Especially, when they themselves denied any association with the devil.
Isn't it more believable that something medical was going on with them?
Another theory that I remember seeing a few years back had something to do with their grain becoming poisoned by some sort of bacteria.
Anyway, to me, this has less to do with witchcraft and everything to do with a medical mystery. THAT is why I am interested in reading it.
BTW, the author admits that Native Americans were there. Not sure why you would think otherwise, Sparkle?
Posts: 7052 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2003
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randibear
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 11290
posted
i am positive, absolutely positive that my mother died of lyme. she was 83.
ticks have been around for a looong time, so it's only right that lyme disease has been too.
-------------------- do not look back when the only course is forward Posts: 12262 | From texas | Registered: Mar 2007
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lymemomtooo
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 5396
posted
I am pretty sure that tick borne diseases have been around forever..including the new co-infections. Just no one had figured out the cause of many illnesses and deaths.
The witch story would be interesting..and who knows???
Posts: 2360 | From SE PA | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I just wanted to say thanks for noticing my book and that there has been a human/computer glitch that issued a draft copy several weeks early with mistakes in it.
I have moved up the release because of this.
If anyone purchased this version of it email me at [email protected] and send you name, address, and a copy of the receipt and I will have a replacement copy sent out.
I want to apologize for the mistake-no one caught it until today.
A portion of the proceeds from each book will be going to Dr. Jones defense fund!
The local Nicnacs1863 dealer on Amazon has a carton of the correct book in stock so if you order please order through them and you'll get the right version.
I tend to be a bit lyme fogged half the time so mistakes get made but I do believe very strongly in my research.
I spent 5 years working on my book as a way of dealing with my new Lymelife!
I went from being active in N.J. politics to being bedridden to becoming a PHD candidate during this time.
I do talk about Native Americans and Plum Island in my book and how environmental conditions create a disease that comes and goes throughout history.
Most witch hunts occurred when people were moving into forest edge environments-either in Europe or New England.
I grew up in northern N.J. and Lyme disease was not a problem-but that was before people stopped hunting deer and the massive suburbanization that occurred.
I wrote this book to provoke discussion because having this ancient disease being treated as something that was discovered by doctors who present themselves as the second coming of Galileo gives them enormous power to control the disease-
hinting that they may have gotten their history wrong may help lesson that grip that controls so many lives.
Thanks Again for Your Interest. I'll be happy to answer any questions you may have. MM
[ 08. June 2008, 08:38 PM: Message edited by: MM DRYMON ]
Posts: 15 | From Maine | Registered: Jun 2008
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Melanie Reber
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
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posted
Good morning MM,
So nice of you to post here today. I ordered the book last week from Amazon and it will be arriving on the 18th.
Would that be the good copy or the draft? Sorry, I wasn't sure what a 'normal' Amazon order would turn up.
How would we be able to tell the difference between the two?
Thanks also for letting us know about the Dr. Jones contributions- that is very kind of you.
I hope you are feeling much better these days. My best, Melanie
Posts: 7052 | From Colorado | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
The cover should be OK but there will be typos and the end of the introduction is all out of skew! If it comes through with problems send a message to [email protected] and a correct copy willget sent out. Thanks for your interest! MM
Posts: 15 | From Maine | Registered: Jun 2008
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shazdancer
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 1436
posted
Thank you for elucidating, MM. It is an interesting thesis, and that and your donation to Dr. J are enough for me to pick up a copy from nicnacs1863.
I hope you'll stay in touch on the MaineLyme group, both for information and support. Having just earned my own MLIS while working 3 jobs and supporting my Lyme kid, I know how tough it can be -- congrats!
-- Shaz
Posts: 1558 | From the Berkshires | Registered: Jul 2001
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So, though I believe it became more common in the late 70's, that doesn't mean it didn't exist before .... it also doesn't mean that Plum Island didn't make it more prevalent.
This book doesn't sound like a black magic book to me .... it sounds to me like the premise is that those being tried for witchcraft might have actually been suffering neurological effects of Lyme .... and in the same way our LLMD's are being persecuted today.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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MM Thank you for donating funds to Dr Jones, that is excellent!!
-------------------- "You'll be surprised to know how far you can go from the point you thought it was the end" Posts: 946 | From Massachusetts | Registered: Apr 2008
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posted
I will definitely break up my paragraphs- thanks for the instructions!
Shazdancer- I think my husband Nicnacs1863 is on the MaineLyme list(he's had Lyme too!)-I used to keep up with it a bit -really nice people-I think I sent you one of my bibliography lists a few years ago-
but I have been so busy working on my PHD, finishing this book, writing my dissertation and dealing with neuro-lyme stuff and a child with Lyme induced autism
that I haven't had time to keep up with as much as I would like to-we used to have a group at USM but it disbanded when people graduated.
I ran into this group through Google search and saw that they were discussing the book and thought I'd participate!
Posts: 15 | From Maine | Registered: Jun 2008
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shazdancer
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 1436
posted
I am sending you a personal message, which you can respond to by clicking on the icon above the message thread.
Thanks, Shaz
Posts: 1558 | From the Berkshires | Registered: Jul 2001
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thank you so much for breaking that up so i could read your story here! sorry to read of your son having health problems; possibly lyme caused ... congenital??
BIG THANKS FOR DONATING $$$ TO DR. CHARLES JONES' DEFENSE FUND!!!! *************************
may it be on the NUMBER 1 BOOK LIST this year!!
my best to you on getting your health back as well!!!
we've had many lyme book authors join here lately; great visiting 1 on 1 and getting prompt answers to any/all questions!
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lymeladyinNY
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 10235
posted
I've often wondered if those who are viewed as being "possessed by the devil" aren't actually sick with bartonella. I know I sure do a lot of levitating, guttural screaming, and head twisting when the blo gets out of control.
-------------------- I want to be free Posts: 1170 | From Endicott, NY | Registered: Sep 2006
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posted
Too bad they were burning so called "Witches" when the solution was to start burning deer and other vectors.
I am all out in favor of an all year season on deer, no bag limit, both sexes and any age. Especially after they go after my organic fruit trees. They are nothing more than.....
Rats with Antlers
Question heard at a party: How do most Alaskans like their venison? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . answer: Poached!
Posts: 34 | From Kingston WA | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
I've been looking for a traditional New England cure for my case of Lyme Disease and this book describes one from back in history there that 100% eliminates it.
Coinfections too! No testing required. No antibiotics! No supplements. And no insurance needed except maybe some life insurance for some beneficiaries.
Burning at the Stake
I feel better and less fog brained already!
Posts: 34 | From Kingston WA | Registered: Feb 2008
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posted
I believe that Lyme disease has been around for a very long, long time.
That isn't to say the disease hasn't been "tweaked".
2nd that!!!!!!!!
-------------------- Seeking renewed health & vitality. --------------------------------- Do not take anything I say as medical advice - I am NOT a dr! Posts: 830 | From TN | Registered: Aug 2007
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bettyg
Unregistered
posted
i decided to look for my note about amazone books, and here it is so it can be found later on the board again!! ************************
Note from Kay Lyon: Kay's email is write above her note! Betty
[QB] If you plan to buy P.J.'s books (OR ANYTHING ON AMAZON.COM) using Amazon, please click on one of these 2 links to get to Amazon.
Just using these links will donate 4% of your purchase to Dr. Jones' defense fund. Thanks! [/b]
Cass A
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 11134
posted
So pleased that someone is writing about Lyme in an historical context!!
As for the Indians, according to the book, "1491," the Europeans brought pigs which carried a flu infection that Indians, genetically, didn't have any resistance to, and they died in droves. The vectors and the disease swept across America, and the Indicans were mostly recently dead on the East Coast around the time the Pilgrims landed! It was worse than the Black Death--over 80% mortality!
Actually, the landscape the first European settlers found was not "natural," but highly organized for Indian culture and survival. Even here in California, there are stands of oaks that were "selected" for their huge acorns as a food plant, for example.
I'm sure the Indians kept the deer population under control, as the source of food and material for clothing. They possibly even had some "medicine" for Lyme--but, if so, the knowledge died with them.
Personally, for a fictionalized account, I am partial to the play, "The Crucible," by Arthur Miller.
Another interpretation is that the laborers there from Barbados brought mind altering drugs with them.
I'll just have to get this book....
Best,
Cass A
Posts: 1245 | From Thousand Oaks, CA | Registered: Feb 2007
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posted
For Sparks- In the 1950's and 60's out here in Tickland the doctors called it "Montauk Knee"
Pershing proved it when he studied specimens from around the country and came up with 13 ticks from Montauk and Hither Hills (also Montauk) with the same DNA.
When it hit children they called it juvenile rheumatoid arthritis.
articles
Detection of Borrelia burgdorferi DNA in museum specimens of Ixodes dammini ticks DH Persing, SR Telford 3rd, PN Rys, DE Dodge, TJ White, SE Malawista, and A Spielman Department of Laboratory Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06510.
In order to investigate the potential for Borrelia burgdorferi infection before the recognition of Lyme disease as a clinical entity, the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) was used to examine museum specimens of Ixodes dammini (deer ticks) for the presence of spirochete-specific DNA sequences. One hundred and thirty-six archival tick specimens were obtained representing various continental U.S. locations; DNA sequences characteristic of modern day isolates of B. burgdorferi were detected in 13 1940s specimens from Montauk Point and Hither Hills, Long Island, New York. Five archival specimens of Dermacentor variabilis (dog tick) from the same collection and 118 Ixodes specimens from other endemic and nonendemic sites were negative. These data suggest that the appearance of the Lyme disease spirochete in suitable arthropod vectors preceded, by at least a generation, the formal recognition of this disease as a clinical entity in the United States.
Posts: 465 | From New York, NY | Registered: Aug 2005
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MariaA
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9128
posted
Sparkle7,
There's a lot of evidence that borrellia has been around for longer than the 1970's-80's, as noted by various posters above.
The Plum Island biological weapons lab theory partially hinges on the fact that scientists from the lab did experiments a few decades ago, in which they scattered ticks by airplane to see how they'd spread (which actually makes a lot of sense as an explanation for why Lyme suddenly exploded in the late 1970's).
Of course there was little understanding at the time of how many different diseases ticks can carry and spread.
-------------------- Symptom Free!!! Thank you all!!!!
lightfoot
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2536
posted
Very interesting and interesting comments. Casey, that's quite a cure!!!!!! It's certainly guaranteed 100%!!!!
I can't wait to read this one.
I also think the Lyme bacteria and other co-infection have been around for eons.
Can someone point me to the documentation of the fossils mentioned by tincup and others in this thread.
Thanks, Melanie!
Have a great day!!
-------------------- Healing Smiles.....lightfoot Posts: 7228 | From CO | Registered: May 2002
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MariaA
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9128
posted
1491 is a fantastic book about the history of people in the Western Hemisphere, and talks a bit about foreign disease and how it spread inland throughout the North and South American continents after European contact with natives on the coasts.
Interestingly, the only serious disease known to cross from the Western Hemisphere to the Old World is syphilis (another spirochete like Lyme), which arrived in Europe shortly after Columbus if I remember the history right. That type of history is also discussed in a couple of Jared Diamond's books, such as Guns, Germs and Steel.
End of digression from the Lyme topic...
-------------------- Symptom Free!!! Thank you all!!!!
MariaA
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9128
posted
quote:Originally posted by Cass A:
Actually, the landscape the first European settlers found was not "natural," but highly organized for Indian culture and survival.
I'm sure the Indians kept the deer population under control, as the source of food and material for clothing. They possibly even had some "medicine" for Lyme--but, if so, the knowledge died with them.
One major thing the Eastern 'indians' did was to burn the landscape regularly so as to promote plant life and animal habitat for food they hunted, gathered, and grew.
It was a form of agriculture that the Europeans often didn't recognize as farming (most Eastern indians also grew gardens that the early settlers sometimes raided but disparaged as not being 'real' farming).
While once-a-year burning of underbrush is not the same thing as modern weekly mowing of grass for tick control, it did apparently keep brush and other tick habitat under control, and drastically changed how the Eastern woods looked at the time of European contact. This is one of the things that changed as Native populations were displaced over the succeeding centuries and the wildlife population in the Northeast changed. I'm not sure that this means that there were more or fewer infected ticks then, but it probably made it easier for Northeastern indians to deal with avoiding them.
The author of the book we're discussing is right that for the white settlers, walking around in long skirts would make it hard to tell you're being bitten, which would probably make women more likely to be infected than men, and a higher population of infected women would look like a witch sisterhood to the paranoid at the time.
Early Europeans sometimes said that the East Coast was like a park more than a woodland and that you could walk easily through the woods for hundreds of miles in some areas due to this intensive management. I'm sure this changed tick habitat somewhat from what it is today in 'wild' areas.
-------------------- Symptom Free!!! Thank you all!!!!
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