Have you ever thought that your health is a purely personal matter? Medicine, of course, deals with us, but only with our diseases, and not with health at all. The pharmaceutical industry will perish and go bankrupt without our illnesses. The state, the institution where we work, of course, needs healthy workers, but only to increase profits. Nobody will close the distilleries and tobacco factories, although everyone knows what damage their products cause to their health. So it turns out that everyone should take care of their own health. But how?
Traditional medicinal medicine is the lot of specialists, and narrow specialists: if the therapist has kidney problems, he will not be able to treat himself, but will go to the urologist; if the urologist has a toothache, he will go to the dentist, not at all thinking that this pain may have its reasons. What can you expect from such a specialist in matters of our health?
In response to the failure of the drug treatment, accompanied by human casualties, a new course arose, which was named after one of the daughters of the ancient Greek god of healing Asclepius - natural hygiene. What does she offer us?
First of all, it’s not a narrow specialization, not drugs and poisons, but the study of the laws of a comprehensive nature, the comprehensive healing of the whole organism as a whole by natural methods (light, air, water, food, movement) to increase the efficiency of healing forces inherent in the human body by nature .
It may seem that natural hygiene is akin to traditional medicine. This is not true. Natural hygiene differs from traditional medicine by at least three features: firstly, it is systematic and comprehensive; secondly, its techniques and methods are scientifically substantiated, and thirdly, it is educational in nature. If the goal of traditional and traditional medicine is to heal, then the goal of natural hygiene is to educate a person in the Laws of Health, equip him with specific knowledge, skills for the skillful use of objectively acting Laws of Life.
Laws of Life are objective biological laws (from the word “bio” - referring to life) that govern the functions of cells, tissues, organs and systems, health, capabilities and reserves of the human body in everyday life.
The motto of natural hygiene is: “By the age of forty, a person is either a doctor himself or a fool.”
The authors of the book “The Greatest Discoveries of Health”, published in 1978 in Chicago, very vividly describe the environment in which the formation of natural hygiene took place (the term was established in 1856): “From contradictions, confusion, and chaotic heterogeneous mixing of illusory views, referred to as“ medical science ”And“ medical art ”, from the conflicts of various schools of treatment, from the apparent failure to fulfill their promises, from the refusal of doctors to take into account the natural needs of life when caring for patients, an urgent need feasibility in the revolutionary restructuring of biological thought and the revival of the biological view of human needs. "
In 1832, Sylvester Graham, then unknown to anyone else in New York, delivered a series of lectures on proper nutrition. At the beginning of the 19th century, during the cholera epidemic in Philadelphia, S. Graham drew attention to the fact that not a single member of the Biblical Christians sect became ill. The members of this sect refrained from all animal food, considering its use a violation of the commandments of God. They also did not use any stimulants - tea, coffee, tobacco, alcohol, spices. This led Graham to the thought of the healing properties of natural food. He began to promote healthy eating. And not one of his followers got sick with cholera either! Graham’s conclusion was simple: “... a person himself, as a rule, is the cause of his own illnesses and sufferings ... and almost always he is guilty of being sick, and must ask for forgiveness from the society, as well as that he is drinking” ( from the epigraph to G. Shelton's book "Natural Hygiene. The Righteous Way of Man's Life").
In 1861, one of the founders of natural hygiene, R. Troll, formulated the credo of natural hygiene:
“... the system of medicinal medicine is false, incorrect from a philosophical point of view, absurd from scientific, hostile to nature, contrary to common sense, catastrophic in results, it is a curse for the human race ... The system of hygienic medicine that we affirm and practice is in harmony with nature, it complies with the laws of a living organism, scientifically correct, positive in results, it is the boon of the human race. ”
For one hundred and fifty years, the movement for natural hygiene has grown and established. It swept not only the United States, but also Australia, New Zealand, spread to a number of civilized Western European countries and Japan. It has dozens of names of prominent figures of the 19th century, such as S. Graham, I. Jennings, R. Troll, T. Nicole, J. Jackson, X. Austin, C. Page, R. Walter, S. Dodds, F. Oswald , J. Tilden and others, and in the XX century - B. McFadden, J.