What is Natural Hygiene
Natural hygiene is that branch of biology which investigates and applies the conditions upon which life and health depend, and the means by which health is rebuilt and maintained when it has been lost or impaired; it is the study of the "science of health". Natural hygiene may be further defined as being the science and art of restoring and preserving health by those substances and influences that have a normal relation to life: healthy food, pure water, sunlight, rest, sleep, relaxation, physical activity, play, comfortable environment, and positive social relationships; it is the scientific application of the principles of nature in the preservation and restoration of health. Natural hygiene covers the total needs of humans, and not merely a few of their requirements. It is neither a practice of medicine, a healing art, nor a system of therapeutics. It offers no cures, does not pretend to cure, and in fact strives to dispel the popular notion of cures. Instead, natural hygiene emphasizes that adherence to its principles, which are based on the Laws of Nature, permits the body to heal itself.
Where do the terms Hygiene and Natural Hygiene come from?
The Greek goddess of health, Hygieia, gave the name to "Hygiene", as the movement was first named in the 1800's - and "Natural Hygiene", as Drs. Herbert Shelton and Christopher Gian-Cursio called the revived movement in the 1900's; to distinguish the modalities of managing ill-health from the pursuit of restoring health via nature-based healthful living practices, the descriptive adjective "natural" was prefixed to "hygiene".
| Not by divine revelation, as so many have claimed for their "discoveries," but by a close and careful study of nature did all these men come to their knowledge [In the early 1800's many MDs both in Europe and America were critical of the medical practices common at the time. In the USA this movement got the name Hygiene. All but two of the pioneer Hygienists were medical men who had become disillusioned with medical practices]. Hygiene represents a return to that pristine mode of living that emerged with man when he first appeared on the earth; it is a revival of something precious that had been all but lost during the course of ages thanks to the corrupting and perverting influences of shaman, priest, physician, and trader. These, with their false systems and false teachings, have led the race astray. When and where ignorance and superstition have prevailed with all their mind-beclouding and debasing influences, disease and crime abound. -- H. Shelton, 1968. |
The Greek goddess Hygieia