Past and present systems have regarded physiological action as evil, merely because unusual. Trall said: "The extra expenditure of power is the very essence of disease. *** Disease is the 'extraordinary expenditure of vital power'. *** It is extraordinary because it is out of the 'normal play of all the functions ,' ". Other schools have regarded irritation, fever, inflammation, vomiting, diarrhea, and other vital or physiological actions as sources of danger. The Hygienic System regards the vital or dynamic manifestations as efforts of the body to remove pathogen.

As Jennings has it: "There is no danger in the symptoms, singly or collectively. The danger lies back of the symptoms; it existed in all its extent before the process which is now going on in the system commenced. This is a recuperative or restorative operation. It was called for by the state of the system. It is, therefore, a gross libel upon the economy of life to call it a wrong condition--or wrong action!"--Medical Reform, p. 145.

The danger that existed before the beginning of the biogony grows less as this process continues and grows less in proportion to the intensity of the symptoms. This is to say: the more acute the "disease," the more rapidly will recovery be accomplished. As Trall has it, "force is exerted in proportion to the necessity for it", the more violent the exertion, the more acute the biogony. Biogony is the sum of all the body's defensive processes. It represents, as Trall has it, "a purposive redirection of vital activity," it is "directed remedial force". When the sum of the vital actions is fully able to overcome pathogen and repair the damaged tissues, the case terminates in health. If the biogony fails, "chronic disease", or death follows.