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Laws of Health A-Z physiology by D Klein

Our understanding of health and how to live healthfully must be based upon an accurate understanding of human physiology.
The application of the correct understanding of human physiology is the foundation of healthful living. Without an accurate
understanding of human physiology, health practice and health care are errant, dangerous folly.

Physiology is the branch of health science concerned with the normal functions of living organisms and their parts. It is the
science of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of humans, the organs, and the cells of which they are
composed.

The study of human physiology dates back to at least 420 B.C. and the time of Hippocrates. The critical thinking of Aristotle
and his emphasis on the relationship between structure and function marked the beginning of physiology in ancient Greece.
Jean Fernel, a French physician, introduced the term "physiology" in 1525.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton wrote many classic books encompassing human physiology and the application of its knowledge with
respect to the restoration and preservation of health. In 1939 he wrote The Hygienic System: Orthopathy. It stands as perhaps
the greatest foundational text on human physiology.
A physiologist is one who teaches people how to attain and maintain vibrant health via an accurate understanding of how the
body works and what it needs for optimal function, i.e., correct living practices, grounded in physiology as well as biology
and empirical evidence. Health teachers, counselors and doctors must be physiologists.

Each and every one of the Laws of Life adds critical understanding to the way that our bodies function. -Dr. Douglas N.
Graham

Physiology is the doctrine of functions, as anatomy is the doctrine of structures. It is for the anatomist to reveal the order
and arrangement of the living machinery....and for the physiologist to explain its actions and uses. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

The best foundation for a belief in Hygiene is a thorough knowledge of physiology and a knowledge of the causes of
disease. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

An editorial in the Herald of Health, January 1865, says of Sylvester Graham, who was not a physician, that he was pre-
eminently the father of the philosophy of physiology. In his masterly and celebrated work, the Science of Life, he has given
the world more philosophy and more truth concerning the primary and fundamental laws which relate man to external
objects and to other beings, than any other author ever didthan all other authors ever have. Though his writings are in poor
repute with the medical profession, and his vegetarian doctrines are condemned by the great majority of medical men of the
present day, no one has ever undertaken to controvert his arguments, and probably never will. To him, as to all other pioneers
in the Health Reform, the customary remark applies: he was an assiduous worker and thinker. His book has now been before
the people of this country about thirty years, and has been republished and circulated extensively in Europe, and is
everywhere regarded as the pioneer work in the great field of physiology and hygiene. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

In 1837 a group of Graham's students founded in Boston the world's first physiological societyThe American
Physiological Society. Physiology, at that time, was in its infancy and American physiology, in particular, hardly existed.
William Beaumont had only a year or two before issued his work on the physiology of digestion. Claude Benard, the great
French physiologist, was still unknown, while the German school of physiology was without influence in this country. It is
hardly likely that a society of professional physiologists could have been formed anywhere in the world at that time. The
American Physiological Society was formed nearly 50 years before physiologic science had advanced sufficiently to permit
the formation of the Physiological Society in England and before a second American Physiological Society was formed in
this country. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

The Hygienic System grew directly out of the effort of men trained in physiological science to create a system of mind-body
care, both in health and in sickness, that was founded on the principles of physiology. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

The Hygienic System is based squarely upon the ascertained facts and principles of physiology and biology. What is
urgently required today is a revolutionary new orientation of biology. It is an unfortunate fact that biologists and
physiologists conceive it to be their duty to supply a basis for the drugging practice and not to supply valid principles for a
way of life. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

Any system of therapeutics not founded on and consistent with the principles of physiology must be founded in error, and
the practice of such a system must be attended with harm in direct proportion to the extensiveness of the practice. -Dr.
Herbert M. Shelton

No substance that is not a factor-element in physiology can have any value in the living structure under any circumstance of
life. That which is not usable in a state of health is equally non-usable in a state of disease. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

Medical students study physiology, but never think of applying its laws to life, nor do they ever think of doing so when,
after graduation, they are engaged in treating the sick. No amount of study of physiology causes the medical student or the
medical practitioner to alter his ways of life. His studies are all related, both by his texts and by his teachers, to medical and
surgical practices. -Dr. Herbert M. Shelton

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