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Hygiene is often misunderstood. Essentially because of its simplicity, its profundity is obscured. The usual mistake is an easy one, people persist in transferring their medical philosophy to Hygiene.

The conventional approach to health involves the treatment of disease with the use of therapeutic agents. The neophytes and many experienced hygienists think that food, a hygienic material, is a therapeutic agent. That it is used to treat disease. Diet is important in Hygiene for one reason only: food provides materials and the body needs materials with which to work. Because a person appears to recover health after dietary change, one should not ascribe this to the new diet. If diet is a major factor in health it is not the new diet that enabled the patient to recover: it is abandoning the old diet.

A drunken man does not become sober because he drinks coffee or tea or water, or anything else. He becomes sober because he stops drinking alcohol.

Health is spontaneous; disease needs a cause.

Therefore, the fundamental Hygienic principle here is that recovery can only occur with the removal of the cause or, more commonly, causes. If a change of diet, necessitating the removal of the old diet, which all the research has shown leads to hypertension, cardio-vascular disease, varicose veins, arthritis, etc., then the old diet was ‘a cause’ which has now been removed. Dietary change is only of value when the current diet constitutes a cause of disease; then a good result will ensue. Many of us have known those for whom dietary change made little difference. They remained sick and continued to deteriorate. There are also many whose diet is, by Hygienic standards, good and yet they are not well. This relates to our persistent tendency to ignore causes and attempt to do “something” in the form of active treatment – and diet is usually the active treatment. Sometimes, it is not appropriate.

Fasting is probably the most misunderstood technique employed in Hygienic practice. Most people can understand dietary change as a means of removing the causes of disease, but going without food, how do we justify that? Once again, the Hygienist tends to use fasting as a therapy and everything from the infant’s upset stomach to mother’s mastitis, to father’s hypertension is summarily dealt with by fasting. Again, an attempt is made to extrapolate from medical philosophy to Hygiene.

The remedy mentality is so deeply embedded in our consciousness that we must always be wary of the trap of exchanging ‘need’ for ‘palliation’.

Meditation has become a very important therapeutic tool of the alternative practitioner. Do we get sick from meditation deprivation? Does meditation provide a basic need? Studies have shown remarkable results from meditation, in some people. If important causes are removed by the meditating process, its use is justified, but there may be other ways of removing the causes.

A genuine Hygienic agent, or influence is a basic need of life and health. If the organism fails to secure it, disease and death will result. However, an agent or influence does not ‘cure’ or restore normality, it merely provides a ‘need’ with which the organism can work to restore normality. Another fundamental principle applies here, the living performs actions, and we should not confuse chemical action or mechanical action with the attributes of the living organism. Food is acted upon. This is the basis of its use. The food is an inert material. It does not do anything; it has something done to it, by the organism.

Diet, or food, does not ‘cure’ disease. It merely represents a material of use to the body. The organism must be capable of using it for its provision to be justified. In all conditions of life, there is the user and the used. This is a biological principle.

The organic elements that constitute food, the oxygen in the air, the sunlight that supplies energy to the planet are all used by a wide variety of life forms. Consequently, the hygienist makes a clear distinction between food and feeder in dietetic determinations. Hence, the place of fasting, how is it use justified?

As we have seen, food is a material of use, a need, but what determines when it is needed and how much? The organism’s fluctuating condition through rest, activity, stress, temperature, etc., has varying demands for food that manifests in appetite. Under certain conditions, high physical stress and exertion, the demand (appetite) increases. Under other conditions, the demand decreases. Under yet other circumstances, the demand is suspended altogether. If you consider the symptoms of acute disease, influenza, pneumonia, gastritis, cholera, typhoid, etc., all associated with fever, anorexia is almost invariably present, anorexia or loss of appetite. When appetite is lost, this is an unmistakable indication that food is not required; there is no demand for it, the ‘need,’ temporarily, does not exist. Fasting is indicated and justified.

As healing is a biological process, it is tautology to say it is performed by the organism itself. The relationship between food and healing is merely a restatement of the relationship between food and the organism one provides the need, the other uses it.

The recovery of health requires change. The first change is within the person himself or herself. The recognition of the need for changes, the acceptance of a relationship between their health and their way of life. As a way of life is determined by the thoughts, decisions and choices of the individual, all of this must change.

One of the most crucial problems, which face the professional, is how to facilitate or encourage, catalyse this change. For those of us with inpatient facilities, the task is easier, the educational opportunities are available. We can counsel and guide with close supervision. In an office practice, we can rely on the patient reading for some understanding; guidance and correction are only available at intervals.

The seriousness of the health problem determines the urgency and degree of change required. The possibility for this rests with the patient and must be considered as one of their priorities. It is also surprising to me how few people recognise health as an important priority. So often have I been consulted by people who did not live long enough to make the choice necessary to survive because of other “more important and pressing commitments.” The final change was made for them.

Do not lose sight of the inseparable connection between life and health. We cannot have healing without life but we can see all around us life without health. In the majority of cases where life exists health is possible, but only through accepting the possibility for change and making the changes necessary. Health is not some magic quality that certain people are lucky to have. It is a quality just as dependent on biological principles as life itself.