HEALTH : Lyme Disease Traced to 1940s

Tests on ticks collected in the 1940s indicate Lyme disease plagued the United States three decades earlier than previously thought and may have originated on Long Island, researchers said today.

Analyzing the bodies of 136 ticks preserved in alcohol in the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Mass., and the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, researchers found evidence of the microbe that causes Lyme disease in some ticks that roamed eastern Long Island 44 years ago.

Lyme disease was not recognized as a distinct illness in the United States until 1975, when patients were first diagnosed in Lyme, Conn.

More than 14,000 cases of Lyme disease have been reported in 43 states since 1980, with most cases occurring in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic coastal states and Wisconsin, Minnesota, California and Oregon.

The first symptoms usually are a distinctive rash at the tick bite site and flu-like symptoms. The disease can usually be treated with antibiotics. But without treatment, complications such as chronic arthritis, neurological and organ damage can occur.