Arvid Afzelius was a Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 dermatologist.

As a student at the Karolinska institutet

Karolinska Institutet

Karolinska institutet is a medical university in Solna within the Stockholm urban area, Sweden, and one of Europe's largest medical universities...

, Afzelius studied under the prominent dermatologist

Dermatology

Dermatology is the branch of medicine dealing with the skin and its diseases, a unique specialty with both medical and surgical aspects. A dermatologist takes care of diseases, in the widest sense, and some cosmetic problems of the skin, scalp, hair, and nails....

 Moritz Kaposi (1837–1902) in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

. Kaposi has now become a household name because "his" sarcoma

Sarcoma

A sarcoma is a cancer that arises from transformed cells in one of a number of tissues that develop from embryonic mesoderm. Thus, sarcomas include tumors of bone, cartilage, fat, muscle, vascular, and hematopoietic tissues...

 is a common lesion in the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.

In a 1909 meeting of the Swedish Society of Dermatology, Arvid Afzelius presented research about an expanding, ring like lesion he had observed. Afzelius published his work 12 years later and speculated that the rash

Rash

A rash is a change of the skin which affects its color, appearance or texture. A rash may be localized in one part of the body, or affect all the skin. Rashes may cause the skin to change color, itch, become warm, bumpy, chapped, dry, cracked or blistered, swell and may be painful. The causes, and...

 came from the bite of an Ixodes

Ixodes

Ixodes is a genus of hard-bodied ticks . It includes important disease vectors of animals and humans . Some ticks in this genus may transmit the pathogenic bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi responsible for causing Lyme disease...

 tick

Tick

Ticks are small arachnids in the order Ixodida, along with mites, constitute the subclass Acarina. Ticks are ectoparasites , living by hematophagy on the blood of mammals, birds, and sometimes reptiles and amphibians...

. This rash is the early stage of Borreliosis, now known as Erythema migrans

Erythema migrans

Erythema chronicum migrans refers to the rash often seen in the early stage of Lyme disease. It can appear anywhere from one day to one month after a tick bite. This rash does not represent an allergic reaction to the bite, but rather an actual skin infection with the Lyme bacteria, Borrelia...

, an early indication of Lyme disease

Lyme disease

Lyme disease, or Lyme borreliosis, is an emerging infectious disease caused by at least three species of bacteria belonging to the genus Borrelia. Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto is the main cause of Lyme disease in the United States, whereas Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii cause most...

.

Borrelia afzelii

Lyme disease microbiology

Lyme disease, or borreliosis, is caused by Gram negative spirochetal bacteria from the genus Borrelia, which has at least 37 known species, 12 of which are Lyme related, and an unknown number of genomic strains...

, one of the borrelia

Borrelia

Borrelia is a genus of bacteria of the spirochete phylum. It causes borreliosis, a zoonotic, vector-borne disease transmitted primarily by ticks and some by lice, depending on the species...

species that is an agent of Lyme disease, is named in his honor.

Related Bibliography

• Verhandlungen der dermatologischen Gesellschaft zu Stockholm. Archiv für Dermatologie und Syphilis, Berlin, 1910, 101: 104.
• Erythema chronicum migrans. Acta dermato-venereologica, Stockholm, 1921, 2: 120–125.