Laminitis A Price of associated with lush grass is the most common form progress? of the condition today, but it was hardly known a century ago. Why?

While reorganizing my collection of old veterinary books

recently, I began to wonder: When did grass become danger-

ous for so many horses and ponies to eat?

Many of these books had been given to me by my clients

over my 45 years of veterinary practice, and I had not revisited many of them

since the discovery of the role of insulin as a cause of laminitis in horses with

equine metabolic syndrome (EMS) or pituitary pars intermedia dysfunction (PPID,

Cushing’s disease). I began re-reading sections regarding laminitis in each book,

interested in seeing what was written years ago in light of the information we now

have about the causes of the condition.

I started with G.H. Dadd’s

then moved on to books and journals from the early 20th century. I was particular-

ly interested to see the laminitis risk factors listed by past authors. To my surprise

I found no discussion of an association between the disease and eating grass in

any of my old books. Nor did I find any mention of overweight animals with cresty

necks being prone to laminitis.

I then expanded my search, exploring other older veterinary documents and

texts at the University of Missouri’s historic Veterinary Medical Library with the

assistance of Trenton Boyd, the library’s curator. What a revealing journey this

proved to be!

The Modern Horse Doctor,

published in 1854, and