Changes

In the early years they believed in Toxemia Theory (toxins introduced into our bodies cause disease); Vital Force (the body’s innate ability to fight off disease if one does not impede normal, healthy nerve, circulatory and organ functions); the Law of Crises (that the body works to expel toxic matter (e.g., through fever, blisters, etc.) and that expulsion should be facilitated, not suppressed with therapeutics) and Conscious Living (each person must take responsibility for maintaining their health to prevent illness). This is an individualistic approach to health, but naturopaths have always embedded it within a scathing critique of capitalist monopoly, poor treatment of ethnic minorities and urban poverty and called for a healthy environment to support individual health.

Naturopathy differed from the 19th medical sects of eclecticism, hydropathy, botanics (herbal medicinals) and chiropractic in many ways. It is not a single cause/cure premise. Bodily wellbeing cannot be attained through any one healing system like these, most especially not through regular medicine. The best methods must be combined from many practices to create a healthy world and body. Naturopathy does have in common with these named sects an insistence that the individual cannot be a passive recipient of expert-driven health care. Rather, health is predicated on personal responsibility. Naturopathy also relied and still relies heavily on women’s knowledge and expertise as both professional practitioners and domestic healers.