Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws: An Exposition of the Principles and Practices of Orthopathy [Facsimile] [Paperback]

Herbert M. Shelton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1996

Contents: Health and Its Conditions and Requirements; The Laws of Life; Living Matter Cures Itself; Is Disease Friend or Foe; Early Orthopathic Ideas of Disease; Acute Disease a Curative Process; Self-Limited Disease; The Rational of Inflammation and Fever; Physiological Compensation; Acute Disease not a Radical Cure; Unity of Disease and Symptoms; Causes of Disease; Germs; Perversions; Feeding; Fasting; Sunshine and Sun-Baths; Physical Exercise; Hygiene of Health; Care of Wounds; Place of Art; Passing of the Plagues; Suppression of Disease and its Results.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 552 pages
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing, LLC; Facsimile edition edition (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564597148
• ISBN-13: 978-1564597144
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,548,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Toward a Correct Unifying Theory of Health and Disease, November 28, 2006

By 

M. Julian - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws: An Exposition of the Principles and Practices of Orthopathy (Paperback)

Dr. Shelton was responsible for reviving some of the best natural health principles from some of the best American authors of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The term Hygiene was invoked under the name The Hygienic System by the 19th century American health reformers and later by Dr. Shelton under the name Natural Hygiene, hygiene being derived from the Greek goddess Hygeia, the goddess of health (the emphasis of healthful conditions produce health) versus Panacea the goddess of cure (the belief in remedies without removing cause).

The one thing they had in common was a new view of what disease is and that the idea of "curing" was a holdover, a throwback from ancient more superstitious times.

The great French scientist Bechamp showed that "microzyma" were the tiniest living forms, the precursor to microbes (yeast, fungus, virus, bacteria in all their forms etc.), and manifest only when the "terrain" (i.e. conditions of the individual and environment) required and "exalted" them, thus effectively disproving Pasteur's germ theory. Around the same time and earlier Americans conceived principles allowing for a correct understanding of the causes of illness and disease.

The essence of the reformist American theories is this (to paraphrase Dr. Shelton and the American health reformers): "Disease itself is the remedial process. It's not something that needs to be cured (i.e. attacked, killed, thwarted or subdued) but something that should be allowed to complete its purification and repair unhindered. The problem precedes the disease and that problem is unhealthful conditions including toxins, excesses, insufficiencies, exhaustion, etc. Disease constitutes body processes of recovery and repair, the most common actions being fever, mucus, eruptions, coughing, vomiting, inflammation among others. All are life saving and life preserving. The dangerous and deadly method of medicine over the centuries has been mostly to attack and suppress these processes (as if they were the cause) with every snake oil potion they could come up with and in so doing delay recovery, injure, and often kill the patient, then to blame it on anything but their treatment and collect hefty fees.

Thus the use of some of the simplest methods, the methods you could do yourself without help including cleanliness, rest, physiological rest (fasting i.e. no food), clean water/air, warmth, quiet, etc. have been used effectively because they are more in line with nature, what is actually needed, giving the body a chance to recover without all manner of well meaning assaults.

The whole story of epidemics has to be rewritten and shown to be the result of mass exhausting, toxic, stressful, and/or contaminated conditions, rarely the result of one cause, and usually the result of multiple causes including the variable of the health level of the individual or the group prior to the introduction of one or more causes. The story of Pasteur, the failed germ theory, and the disaster of mass vaccinations also has to be seen for what it is and re-explained. Realize that you are in a world where the snake oil salesman has evolved into the corporate pharmaceutical juggernaut as part of the medical cartel. The Wall Street mentality has further corrupted an already thoroughly corrupt excuse for health care.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive treatment of the principles of Natural Hygiene, November 29, 2008

By 

Joanne of Joanneunleashed website (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws: An Exposition of the Principles and Practices of Orthopathy (Paperback)

Herbert Shelton is THE voice for natural hygiene (NH) in the 20th century. NH teaches that the body is fully self-sufficient and can properly regulate its functions and maintain health if we live in accordance with the laws of health. These are clean air, clean water, proper food, fasting, sunshine, rest, exercise, cleanliness, warmth, hope, community, composure, etc.

We have been taught since youth that disease--the outward manifestation of inward imbalance--is the enemy and is to be conquered through drugs and surgery. Failing body parts are removed, cells are destroyed, our system is poisoned by toxic chemicals called pharmaceuticals. We blindly go along taking our drugs, poisoning our system, and deteriorating further until more and more drugs are needed to suppress even more symptoms of imbalance and to counteract the effects of the other drugs. We enter our golden years crippled and tired. We are not taught to correct the habits that cause disease but that disease is an attack from outside. This is just the scientific equivalent to the earlier (and often current) belief that disease is caused by demons.

Now, we who are enlightened poison ourselves with herbs and external therapeutics in an effort to "assist" the hundred trillion cells of our body in their work. If the body creates a fever to speed metabolism to deal with an internal imbalance, is it prudent to ingest a toxin (non-food) to suppress that fever? If our body, in diverting energy in sickness toward cleansing and repairing, causes us to lose our hunger, is it wise to fill our bellies with food? Do we suffer from an acupuncture or aspirin deficiency? Is it wise to immerse the human body in very cold or very hot water causing a flurry of energy-dissipating activity to reach homeostasis? To what end? To feel invigorated? Yes, as invigorated as the tired horse to which you applied the spur! Is osteoporosis a disease crying for drugs or the end result of the body robbing the bones of alkaline minerals to buffer acids ingested from years of improper diet--all to maintain our blood at a pH of 7.4 in an attempt to keep us alive?

Is the origin of disease an enemy from outside or an internal act of physiology by the body attempting to LIVE? NH affirms that disease IS the cure. All our wisdom could never match the complexity and grandeur of the processes of life within us.

If I could only have one book on health and the human body, this would be the book. This is 518 pages that will turn your current ideas of health and disease upside down. Natural hygiene--the let-alone treatment--is nothing new. Pharmaceutics and surgery are the newcomers. We've just evolved from the ingestion of bat excrement and the scrapings of St. Peter's tomb to pus and patentable poisons. If pharmaceutics and surgery were the top performers in health attainment, our nation would not be the sickest nation on earth and our economy would not be strapped with the ever-rising costs of health care.

If you want to know about the true nature of disease and the attainment of health, this book is well worth your money and time.

5.0 out of 5 stars Pretty great, February 7, 2010

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Mr. Angus R. Holliday (Via Cooktown, Queensland, AU) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Human Life Its Philosophy and Laws: An Exposition of the Principles and Practices of Orthopathy (Paperback)

Natural Hygiene is blessed with some solid foundations of thinking. Reading Szekely and Shelton is a good combination.