(1788-1874)
Father of Fasting and the Hygiene Movement.
American physician and writer who pioneered orthopathy (natural hygiene).
Health care based on physiology, or natural hygiene (as it was later known), began with Isaac Jennings, M.D., in 1822.
“None who believe in the existence of a Supreme Creator and are in the habit of observing the exact order and harmony that prevail in all the material substances and bodies around them will question that their own bodies, which are so “fearfully and wonderfully made,” are constituted in accordance with fixed principles and that ordinarily, at least, all the vital machinery of their physical systems is controlled by expressed law.”
“Obedience to physical law will render obedience to moral law comparatively easy.”
Excerpt From Fasting Supervision and Lifestyle Care (Burton, Burton and Krackler)
About Isaac Jennings
Isaac Jennings (1788-1874) was a hardworking man who hailed from Fairfield, Connecticut, born on November 7, 1788. In his early years, he devoted himself to working on his father’s farm. On September 17, 1805, he entered matrimonial bliss with Maria, the daughter of Deacon Nathan Beers, and they were blessed with three sons and two daughters.
Isaac received his education at Yale, where he studied under Dr. Eli Ives from 1809 to 1811. Dr. Ives taught conventional medical practices of the time and emphasized the healing power of “drugopathy,” which involved using medications to make sick people well by administering the same medicines that make healthy people sick. This approach aimed to bring about effective healing through a thoughtful application of medical knowledge.
Upon his graduation in 1812, Isaac Jennings obtained a license to practice medicine. He established his practice in Trumbull, CT, and later relocated to Derby, CT, in 1820. His pursuit of a medical degree culminated in 1828 when he received his M.D. from the Yale School of Medicine.
Following his graduation from Yale, Jennings practiced orthodox medicine—primarily bloodletting and the use of the drugs common to the era—for nearly 15 years. However, in 1822, he abandoned these conventional practices and ceased using drugs altogether. This pivotal moment marks the true beginning of physiological, or what would later be known as Natural Hygiene. What truly distinguishes Isaac Jennings was his recognition that the traditional medical practices he was trained in did not lead to the recovery or progress of his patients.
Dr. Jennings’ disillusionment with drugs came during his care of a young woman suffering from typhus fever. Faced with the possibility of her imminent death, he took a bold step – he ceased her medication and instead administered water from a pure spring, which he offered in lieu of conventional drugs. The results were remarkable – the patient’s condition began to improve, and she soon made a full recovery. This powerful case was a turning point for Dr. Jennings, leading him to firmly renounce the use of drugs in his practice.
During this time, Jennings began advocating for the “orthopathic” approach to treating disease, which emphasized aligning the patient with organic law and then allowing the body to heal itself through the vis medicatrix naturae (the healing power of nature). His transition to drugless treatments was met with some skepticism from his patients. To ease their concerns, he carried an assortment of placebos—ranging from bread pills and brightly colored powders made of wheaten flour to variously tinted bottles of soft water. He would dispense these remedies, carefully instructing patients on their use while offering guidance on diet and hygienic practices. Despite the unconventional nature of his methods, he garnered an outstanding reputation as a “healer.”
Dr. Jennings changed his approach to treating patients in a way unknown to his clients at the time, which laid the groundwork for the beginning of health care based on physiology, or Natural Hygiene.
With these unconventional “remedies,”
he gained an excellent reputation as a “healer.”
Photo: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Jennings eventually grew weary of deceiving his patients with placebos and made his approach public, leading to the development of “Hygiene,” the science of health. Following his revelation, some patients continued with him, while others did not. He faced accusations of fraud and lost the trust of many. Nevertheless, some open-minded individuals supported him, stating, “If you can cure our illnesses without medicine, then you are the doctor for us.” Instead of receiving recognition for his pioneering research and innovative approach, his medical colleagues openly criticized and ridiculed him, ultimately dismissing him as a quack, despite his remarkable success in treating patients.
In 1839, Dr. Jennings moved to Oberlin, Ohio. The town was designed as a health-promoting model colony and later developed into the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He became a member of the Board of Trustees of Oberlin College and served as the city mayor.
Jennings’ work greatly influenced such professional men as Drs. Russell Thacker Trall, James Jackson, and successors in natural hygiene such as Robert Walter, Charles Page, and Felix Oswald. Unfortunately, Dr. Jennings was not a crusader; his lack of crusading spirit proved a significant drawback in the early days of the Hygienic Movement. If he had been more vocal about his views and practices, many early Hygienists’ mistakes could have been avoided.
Dr. Jennings died of pneumonia in Oberlin, Ohio, on March 13, 1874.
Life in the 1800s
Photo: The Burns Archive, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
(Excerpt from the Natural Hygiene Handbook)
It was in an era of “hog, hominy, and homespun.” Grains, bread, pork, and lard pies predominated in the people’s diet—vegetables and fruits were neglected and considered contraband.
Nobody took baths; a strong body odor was considered a badge of merit. Fresh air was feared. Cold air, damp air, night air, and draughts were especially feared. Houses were unventilated and foul; no sunlight was permitted to enter lest it fade the rugs, carpets, and upholstering.
Sanitation was neglected; tobacco was chewed, smoked, and snuffed almost universally; alcohol was the favorite beverage, and disease was common.
The people suffered from typhus and typhoid fevers, malaria, cholera, yellow fever, diarrhea, dysentery, diphtheria, scrofula, meningitis, tuberculosis, and pneumonia. The general death rate was high, but the death rate among infants and children was appalling; many mothers died in childbirth of child-bed fever.
If you got sick in the early 1800s, you were a candidate for such barbaric “care” as bleeding (drawing blood from you), applying leeches directly on your skin, blistering, burning, and cauterizing (to “draw” the pain away); forced purging and vomiting; and, of course, taking highly-toxic (and long since abandoned) drugs. Water was routinely withheld from the sick, heightening your chances of dying from dehydration. The death rate was relatively high, and the illness recovery rate was quite low. The ‘cures’ were worse than the diseases!
During this time, a popular protest against the bleeding and heroic drug dosing practiced by the “regular” medical profession began. Homeopathy and physio-medicalism arose in response to the demand for milder medication, while the Hygienic System came into being and created opposition to all medication whatsoever.
VITAL ACTIVITY IS SUPREME
The chemical affinities are always subordinate to the vital economy. While she has control of the organism, she reigns supreme and without a rival. She may be crippled in her movements by external violence and internal noxious agencies, but strong or feeble, she never admits any power to a participation with her in the administration of her affairs. It is all vitality so long as there is any vitality, and when vitality ceases, it is all chemical affinity. by
ISAAC JENNINGS, M.D., 1867 –
From the Journal of Natural Hygiene – Winter 1957
Impact of Diet and Lifestyle
Jennings did not support the use of alcohol or drugs. He became a congregationalist deacon and was an activist in the temperance movement. He was vegetarian and did not consume coffee, tea, meat, or spices or use tobacco products.
Jenning’s non-use of medicine was based on the idea that nature can keep the human body healthy and that disease results from an imbalance of vital forces, otherwise known as vitalism. In this theory, disease is a unit, and any medication cannot aid its various forms (fever, inflammation, coughs, etc.). He relied solely upon the body’s healing powers supported through rest, fasting, diet, pure air, and other hygienic factors. Diseases vanished before him with a promptness relatively unknown at the time. His fame spread far and wide.
He also noticed that older, experienced doctors, as a general rule, prescribed much less medicine and trusted more to nature. Younger doctors, he observed, tended to trust drugs. Based on his observations, this led him to doubt the prevalent medical practices of the day and, within a very short time, to discard them altogether.
However, before moving from Derby, CT., to Oberlin, Ohio, Dr. Jennings disclosed the secret of his remarkable success (using placebos) and became an adversary of all drug medication. The effect of his disclosure on the community in which he practiced was quite varied. Some denounced him as an imposter, while others continued and followed his protocols with excellent results. The Buffalo Medical and Surgical Journal described Jennings’ methods of utilizing bread pills as “downright quackery” and a “disgrace to the medical profession” despite his incredible results.
Know of What You Do
Quote: “People will not commit suicide when they know what they are about. They are now committing suicide of body, soul, and spirit because “They know not what they do.” A thorough airing of the medical or stimulant delusion will lead to the detection and breaking up of all other delusions. Let the sovereign people once get a fair view of the nature and extent of the stupendous fraud that they have been practicing upon themselves in the use of anti-vitality substances. They will not be slow in discovering and uncovering whatever mask may envelop any doctrine, opinion, or theory that betrays the least suspicion of harboring or countenancing error in practice, whether of a physiological or psychological character. Therefore, let all lovers of truth and righteousness make a united and determined effort to scatter the stimulating delusion to the winds of heaven. And in the prosecution of this inquisitorial and expurgatorial labor, special attention should be paid to the “little foxes that spoil the vines.” Give no quarter to the doctrine or practice of “moderate use!’
ISAAC JENNINGS, M.D., 1867
From the Journal of Natural Hygiene – Summer 1957
Teachings
“What is a disease?”
Jennings was educated at Yale School of Medicine, where he was taught the conventional medical practices of the day and began to practice the healing “art of drugopathy” (using medications to make sick people well by administering the same medicines that make healthy people sick). What is truly remarkable about Isaac Jennings is that he quickly realized that in the medical practice he was trained, he wasn’t seeing recovery or progress in his patients.
So Jennings gave them “medication” with detailed instructions on the administration of the “drugs.” However, in reality, his primary focus with the patient was on lifestyle changes.
Photo: Michael Coghlan from Adelaide, Australia, CC BY-SA 2.0
“What is a disease?” Jennings wrote an article about disease, and it was included in the publication Eternal Health Truths of a Century Ago. It was, and still is, the question of the day.
Dr. Isaac Jennings – 1820
Jennings believed that disease is the abatement of health–nothing more, nothing less. With good health, the organs perform their parts, untiring with undeviating steadiness, as the planets move in their orbits. The first step on the descending scale of health is the reduction of power; second, functional derangement; third, structural derangement, or organic disease.
As the force abates, action, enfeebles, and vacillates, the composition or decomposing functions of organs begin to fail to a greater or lesser degree.
No artificial or unnatural means can make anyone feel better than he or she is in the constant habit of feeling. People of sound constitution and figure of health who live on a simple healthy diet never perceive any good effect from the use of stimulants (e.g., drugs, alcohol). It is actually the reverse.
Dr. Jennings discusses the foundation of disease, or predisposition, as it was called. A long, persistent course of violation of the laws of life has produced this condition. He discusses that this predisposition or depressed state of the body differs significantly in each individual.
Jennings supported the belief that to have a good state of health and to prevent disease, you only had to supply the essentials of Health to the body.
At the beginning of his journey of lifestyle care, he used placebos made from bread into “pills” as well as colored water. Patients expected a “pill or elixir” to heal the body magically. So he gave them “medication” with detailed instructions on the administration of the “drugs.” But in reality, his primary focus with the patient was on lifestyle changes.
Thus, he began orthopathy, known as the “do-nothing cure.” This theory stated that “disease is a unit and in its various forms is entirely true to the laws of life, which cannot be aided by any system of medication or any medication whatever.” He added that to restore health, one should “rely solely upon the healing powers of the body and placing patients in the best possible conditions for the operation of the body’s healing processes using rest, fasting, diet, pure air, and Hygienic factors.” He prescribed a vegetarian diet, as he had been convinced by Dr. William Alcott of the benefits of a flesh-free diet.
Jennings theorized that “impaired health or disease is simply a lower degree of the action of parts affected that is performed by the same parts in their highest state of health.” He concluded that one would become more susceptible to disease in a lower state of health. When the vital ability of any department or portion of the system is replete, morbific causes of ordinary power make little impression upon it; when its vitality is low, slight causes disturb or derange it.
Jennings also incorporated fasting into his practice, believing that “food carries no vital power into the system on its own but requires significant energy to be converted into organized tissue and imbued with vitality.” He further argued that “any quantity of food consumed beyond the capacity of the body’s nutritive system to assimilate properly will cause more harm than good.”
from the book by Dr. William Alcott.
Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men
and By Experience in All Ages.
Jennings’ teachings were based on his observation that there are vital laws of life:
- The Law of Action (Exercise),
- The Law of Repose (sleep, rest),
- The Law of Economy (to conserve the vital energy),
- The Law of Distribution (supplying each part of the body with vital energy),
- The Law of Accommodation (adjustment to poisons, etc.),
- The Law of Stimulation (“sounding the alarm” in danger),
- The Law of Limitation (prevention of the waste of vital energy by Nature),
- The Law of Equilibrium (revitalization of weak spots)
Unlike the medical doctors of his time, Jennings felt that nature could “restore her damaged machinery and revitalize it.” He believed disease was a reaction to unfavorable environmental factors. He believed that sickness and eventual death resulted when the laws were broken.
In response to disease, so long as there is no need for nourishment, a cup of cool water and rest is all that is needed. In his writing, Jennings says: “So long as persons are confined to their beds without appetite, there is very little help for them by feeding. It is useless to urge food upon the stomach when there is no digestive power to work it up. Suppose nutrient substances lie a few hours in the warm bath of the stomach without being sufficiently vitalized to protect them from the action of chemical affinity. In that case, they will be converted into acrimonious fluids and gasses and be sources of mischief.”
“The great object to be steadily aimed at in all cases of sickness is to favor the renovating process, which is in constant progression within. Let there be no unnecessary expenditure of vital funds, either through mental exercise or any undue exercise of bodily functions. When there is a disposition to sleep, let it be indulged.”
Dr. Isaac Jennings
Notable Achievements
In his theory, disease is a unit and, in its various forms (fever, inflammation, coughs, etc.), is entirely faithful to the laws of life. Any medication cannot aid these; it relies solely upon the body’s healing powers and placing his patients in the best possible condition to operate the body’s healing processes. Healing is completed through rest, fasting, diet, pure air, and other Hygienic factors, thus allowing his patients to get well.
The beginning of health care based on physiology, or natural hygiene as it was later known, started with Isaac Jennings, M.D., in 1822. At this time, he discontinued his practice of utilizing any drugs.
1847
Jennings wrote the Medical Reform: A Treatise on Man’s Physical Being and Disorders. This book opens with the quote: “Truth is mighty and will prevail.” A sentiment truly supported well over 150 years later.
This book dives into his teachings, which were based on his observations that there are vital laws of life: The Law of Action (Exercise), The Law of Repose (sleep, rest), The Law of Economy (to conserve the vital energy), The Law of Distribution (supplying each part of the body with vital energy), The Law of Accommodation (adjustment to poisons, etc.), The Law of Stimulation (“sounding the alarm” in danger), The Law of Limitation (prevention of the waste of vital energy by Nature), and The Law of Equilibrium (revitalization of weak spots).
Unlike the medical doctors of his time, Jennings felt that “impaired health or disease is simply a lower degree of the action of parts affected, that is performed by the same components in their highest state of health, together with such defects in the solids and fluids as flow from such depressed action. In the book, he expands on what disease is, dives into examples, and ends with practical advice on managing disease and restorative movements.
1852
The Philosophy of Human Life, written by Jennings, covers physiology, general pathology, and special reasons for rejecting heteropathy (mode of treating diseases using a wrong or subversive action) and adopting orthopathy (treatment of illness without drugs). The groundwork of each method is quite opposite to the other.
This book is unique because many medical cases were discussed (covering scarlet fever, cholera, typhus fever, whooping cough, croup, consumption, etc.) and shares how patients healed without using drugs well over 150 years ago!
1867
The Tree of Life or Human Degeneracy, its Nature and Remedy, Based on the Elevating Principle of Orthopathy, discusses the nature of human spiritual and physical degeneration. In part one, Jennings focuses on how physical depravity is an accessory to spiritual degeneracy and provides the remedy for man’s spiritual needs.
In part two, he focused on the organic Laws of Life (as listed above under teaching). He delved into the causes of human degeneration, including poor diet, lack of exercise, and environmental toxins. Jennings discusses remedies based on the principle of orthopathy and how the human body can heal through proper nutrition, exercise, and other hygienic factors. Jennings gives practical advice on how to improve one’s health and well-being through the adoption of a healthy lifestyle as well as treatment protocols for croup, dysentery, cholera, etc. His main objective was to evolve his Osteopathic principles and outline general rules of practice.
Jennings was held in high esteem by his contemporaries in many areas besides hygienists. Alcott, Jackson, Troll, and Oswald recognized him as a great medical philosopher. He was a profound thinker who had worked his way out of the Wilderness of Medicine. He became a Shining Light in health reform.
DR. ISAAC JENNINGS ON VITALITY AND DISEASE
Dr. Isaac Jennings, one of the great masters whose spirit lives in his writing and whose truths shall forever guide the serious student of Natural Hygiene. Excerpts taken from a rare pamphlet -“Defense and Appeal” 1847, uncovered in 1932.
“The new theory holds that disease is simply a negation of health, a depressed and impaired state of the movements and condition of the system, occasioned immediately or proximately by deficiency of vital power, remotely by the operation of impairing causes. That vital action in man is one and the same under all circumstances; that this vital principle or power is itself under the government of law, a law as fixed and uniform in its mode of operation as the laws of gravitation, or any other natural law; and that consequently, when a perfectly developed and sound human system is amply supplied with this motive principle, there will be perfect healthy action; that when this power becomes deficient from over draft or excessive use, or when an impediment to its free action is interposed by a damaged state of the instruments of motion, by direct injury, action falters, becomes less efficient, and deviates more or less from the common or usual standard of healthy action, and, by necessary consequence, is followed by a corresponding vitiation of the solids and fluids.
In other, more general and comprehensive language, disease consists,
First, in a damaged state of the system either in vitiation of matter or diminution of force, or both, superinduced by the operation of noxious causes or influences.
This, in part, may or may not be perceptible by human senses. Sometimes individuals are pushed quite to the outer verge of life, without being conscious of it themselves, or giving any intimation of it to the others, and suddenly drop the “mortal coil,” when it is not in the power of man to prevent it, and yet no trace of structural derangement or organic defect shall be discoverable on the most extensive and minute post mortem examination.
The quantity of vital power, or force or strength of vitality in store at any time, is not within human ken. In one case it may be near final exhaustion without premonition, and yet sustain all the functions at a high point of healthy action, up to the very moment of total and inevitable cessation; while in another case it will hold out beyond all human calculation, carry the system through astonishing changes, and at length restore it to soundness.
So strong is the upward tendency of vitality – disposition of present vital derangement, or departure from the highest state of health-that every opportunity, every period of rest, every favorable circumstance, will be improved to repair injuries, and clothe with power, without suffering any sensible demonstration thereof to be made. And this disposition or tendency can never change – turn about and operate in a wrong direction -under any condition of the system, or change of circumstances, any more than the tendency of water to run down hill can change, and dispose rivers to turn back and move up inclined planes. (From the 1952 Conference Program).
Do Not Exaggerate
“Physiological reformers have unwittingly done much to retard the work of man’s physical renovation by representing that strict conformity to the laws of life would soon renovate the worst cases of dilapidated constitutions—work them over and make new bodies of them.
Thus encouraged, many have made trials of a diet change, and some have held on their way for months. Instead of improving as expected, they found that they were getting worse. Being disappointed, they turned back to their former habits of life. In many instances, “the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
It is impossible that tissues of organs reduced to a seriously crippled state by a long course of transgression should recover even a tolerable degree of health and vigor in a few weeks or months under any treatment.
ISAAC JENNINGS, M.D. 1867.
Learn more from: (Read Direct Excerpts)
- Graham, S., Trall. R., Shelton, H. (2009). The Greatest Health Discovery. Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
- Shelton, H. (1968). Natural Hygiene: The Pristine Way of Life Youngstown, OH. National Health Association.
Our Mission
The mission of the National Health Association is to educate and empower individuals to understand that health results from healthy living. We recognize the integration of all aspects of health: personal, environmental, and social.
We communicate the benefits of a plant-based diet, exercise and rest, a healthy environment, psychological well-being, and, when indicated, fasting.
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