With the first World War raging in Europe,

With the first World War raging in Europe, 30-year-old Englishman Hugh Lofting was living in New York, with his wife and two young children, working for the British Ministry of Information. In 1916 he left the safety and comfort of his life there, returned to England, joined the army, and was sent to Flanders. His service on the front nearly cost him his life, and it inspired him to create one of the most beloved characters in children’s literature.

While enduring the horrors and monotony of the trenches, Lofting wrote letters home to his children Elizabeth and Colin. Not wanting to share with them the details of his experiences, which he said would have been either “too horrible or too dull,” and knowing that the children preferred that the letters be illustrated, Lofting decided to entertain them with a story—a story that had been inspired by his wartime observations.

Lofting was troubled by the difference in how wounded soldiers and wounded horses were treated. “However seriously a soldier was wounded, his life was not despaired of,” he later wrote, “all the resources of a surgery highly developed by the way were brought to his aid. A seriously wounded horse was put out by a timely bullet.” To Lofting, this did not seem fair. “If we made the animals take the same chances as we did ourselves, why did we not give them similar attention when wounded?”

As he pondered his question, it occurred to Lofting that for a doctor to give the same kind of surgical attention to horses that was being given to humans “would necessitate a knowledge of horse language.” And thus was born in his imagination, Dr. Doolittle, a gentle country physician who learns the languages of animals so that he can more effectively treat them. Lofting sent his illustrated Doolittle stories to his children, and they were thrilled and delighted by them.

In 1918 Lofting was struck in the thigh by grenade fragments and very seriously wounded. Saved by the prompt and diligent medical attention that had inspired his tale, he was evacuated from the front. Some of the shrapnel was too deeply embedded to be removed and the wound plagued Lofting for the rest of his life. After being discharged from the army, Lofting returned to the United States and to his family. Two years later he published The Story of Doctor Doolittle, introducing to the world Dr. John Doolittle of Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.

Hugh Lofting went on to publish eight Dr. Doolittle children’s books during his lifetime, along with four other children’s books and a long antiwar poem titled “Victory for the Slain.” He died at age 61 in Topanga, California, on September 26, 1947, seventy-six years ago today.