In the Crucible of Chronic Lyme Disease

Following completion of his medical training and a one-year stint as attending physician on Howard Champion's Surgical Critical Care Service and MedStar Unit at Washington Hospital Center in the District of Columbia, Kenneth Liegner, M.D. returned to Westchester County, home of his Alma Mater, New York Medical College, to start a private practice. Unwittingly, he had 'plunked himself down' in the heart of a burgeoning epidemic of Lyme disease. His patients confronted him with puzzling syndromes that defied 'tidy' formulations of the illness and thrust him in to a Maelstrom of medical controversy. Lyme disease, a new poorly understood disease, emerged hand in hand with the rise 'managed care'. Physicians caring for persons with Lyme disease, loyal to the Hippocratic Oath and serving what they saw as patients' best medical interests, found themselves on a collision course with a new Corporate Medical Ethic dedicated to maximizing profit. One practitioner's work over 25 years is presented here along with correspondence with many principals in the field. Documentational in nature and not written as a narrative, the materials, nonetheless, convey the intensity of the struggle to characterize the nature of Lyme disease and the desperate fight for proper diagnosis and treatment upon the outcome of which patients' very lives depended. The volume includes protocols useful as reference materials for patients and practitioners alike, as well as photographic images of many persons important in the history of Lyme disease. Foreword by Pam Weintraub, Senior Editor of aeon digital magazine and author of award-winning book Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic. Preface by Paul W. Ewald, Professor of Evolutionary Biology at the University of Louisville and author of Plague Time.