Volume 24, Number 10 419

Tomorrow’s CommonSense

I never heard of the old medical adage “Today’s non-sense is tomorrow’s common sense.” I know of nobody inthe veterinary medical field with an exclusively equinepractice who advocates that all horses need or requireshoes, nor was that stated in the letter written by me in re-sponse to Dr Cook’s viewpoint previously printed. In fact,I stated that many horses do not need shoes, but to advo-cate never to shoe a horse or to state categorically that nohorse needs shoes is wrong and irresponsible. To dupe thepublic into thinking shoes are responsible for most if notall of the ills of the horse is fraudulant in my opinion.

Does Dr Cook have any background in equine prac-tice and in dealing with lamenesses, founder, or any otherproblem of the feet? If so, he needs to state that beforestating his opinion. I would ask you the same question, inthat you are proponent of Dr Strasser; at least I get thatopinion with your editorial. All of us in equine practicedeal with these problems daily. How many years did youdeal with them? Have you looked into Dr Strasser’s “re-

search”? After reading her book, I felt that most of it isher own “research” with her own conclusions. If I amwrong, please correct me.

Dr Strasser is making lots of money selling her newmethod to all the people attending her seminars and buy-ing her books and her philosophy. That is how I becameacquainted with her method—that is, 2 of my clients at-tended 1 and then wanted me to read her book, as theywere becoming “certified” in her method of foot care.They even advertised themselves (for a while) as “naturalhorse feet specialists.” This is not only irresponsible buttheft by fraud in my opinion and very damaging to horses.

In closing, no veterinarian will ever say, “A barefoothorse cannot work,” as Dr Cook insinuates I did. By theway, have you checked out Dr Cook’s 2-finger method ofpalpating the throat to determine paralysis of the ary-tenoid cartilages? When is that going to be “tomorrow’scommon sense”?

Steve Hicks, DVM

0737-0806/$ - see front matter© 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.jevs.2004.09.003