Natural hygiene (or orthopathy) is an alternative to medicine that states the human body can and will heal itself if the causes of disease are removed. However, it does acknowledge that this concept is not helpful for some conditions, such as diabetes and others. For chronic conditions and serious diseases, it recommends being under the supervision of a professional practitioner.

While natural hygiene is promoted as a new discovery, it in fact has roots in a number of alternative therapies that go back to the early nineteenth century. Dr. John H. Scheel, a German-born homeopath, coined the word naturopathy in 1895 for a system of dietary restrictions and herbal nostrums that conspicuously included fasting as a treatment, all founded on a sort of vitalism that was in vogue at the time, and was promoted as a philosophy by Henri Bergson, among others. Scheel's "naturopathy" itself stemmed back to the thought of the Rev. Sylvester Graham, a Presbyterian clergyman and inventor of the Graham cracker, who believed that diet and morality were related and who taught that vegetarianism helped keep the libido in check.