DISGUISED AS THE DEVIL: HOW LYME DISEASE CREATED WITCHES AND CHANGED HISTORY

REVIEWS "A tour de force of research and scholarship" " The definitive prequel to "Cure Unknown" showing that Lyme disease has been around for a long time and its victims have been badly treated over the centuries!"THE SENTRY "every now and then a literary work comes along that really grabs my attention and gets me fired up enough to write about it. "Disguised As The Devil: How Lyme Disease Created Witches And Changed History" by M.M. Drymon is one of those books.And before I reached the end of the book, I found myself nodding in agreement with many of the passages, caught up in the author's hypothesis and meticulous research. Most modern academics believe that there was no biological factor behind the "witches" of the colonial time period. They ascribe to the notion that these people were motivated to such behavior by social factors such as spite, a need for attention, hysteria, or a psychosomatic disorder. In other words, even to this very day, people are still accusing these "witches" of "faking it." That is an accusation that almost every Lyme sufferer has heard at least once! Indeed, many have made the comparison that the persecution against present-day Lyme patients and their doctors is akin to a modern-day "witch hunt".... Drymon does not jump to conclusions but uses every possible historical record available, including some rather unconventional ones, to ferret out the facts. "Disguised As The Devil" is not a conspiracy-theory laden book, nor filled with the histrionics of the angry and desperately ill. Quite the opposite, in fact, the author lays out the hypothesis and evidence in a very rational and analytical manner. I was extremely impressed by the exhaustive research and copious citations and references from a huge variety of sources, some of which were first-hand witness accounts.Drymon discusses the cultural habits and beliefs of the time, the geography, climate, politics, and other influential factors in their social context. She seems to anticipate every question that readers might come up with (