In fact Burgdorf thought it possible that he himself might have contracted the disease when he contracted an eye infection after washing out the cages of laboratory rabbits that had been infected with it. Two weeks later he broke out with what looked like the typical Lyme’s “bullseye” skin rash and was given antibiotics. But he admitted that he could not be sure that it was beaten: “Who is there to prove that I had it or that I did not have?” he asked in 1991. “I just hope that if I had it, that it’s gone and that one morning I don’t wake up and find I can’t walk anymore. Where does the bug go? How does it behave? What causes the symptoms? How does it relate to the immune system? We don’t know. It’s all still up in the air.”