19th century physiologist, Professor Claude Bernard, stated that the environment of the cell determined the cell's function and integrity.

This premise was advanced in 1953 by French scientist, Professor Louis-Claude Vincent, who determined that the body's internal environment at the cellular level has a specific correlation to the overall state of health and disease.

Vincent hypothesized that the biocellular environment determines the body's tendency toward developing various metabolic imbalances that can lead to disease.

According to Vincent this biocellular environment can be likened to the terrain of the soil in which a farmer grows crops. If the soil is too acid or too alkaline, has too much or too little oxygen or nitrogen, or has an imbalance of other nutrients, the crops either will not grow, or will become weakened and more susceptible to microbes and other forms of disease.

Instead of results for terrain imbalance (i.e. the sick plant), he stated that the better approach is to work with the various factors that determine the overall terrain of the soil, and in this way prevent the imbalance form occurring. The same approach is true for biological organisms.