How and why did Anthroposophical medicine come about?

Anthroposophical medicine by now has a tradition dating back nearly a hundred years. Together with the physician Dr. Ita Wegman (1876-1943), Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), founder of anthroposphically-based Spiritual Science, developed this holistic concept of medicine.

For both of them it was essential that anthroposophical doctors always remain conversant with current developments in natural scientific knowledge. On this foundation, they aspired to expand the scope of medicine to include spiritual scientific aspects. The concept "anthroposophy" is composed of the Greek words "anthropos" - the human being, and "sophia," – wisdom.

This implies that the self-aware human being stands at the midpoint – also in the field of Medicine. Already in 1921, the first modest beginnings of two clinics, one in Arlesheim near Basel, and the other in Stuttgart in Germany, were opened to put into practice this new medical direction. From this humble origin, over the next decades, anthroposophical medicine has spread throughout the world. In doing so, it has also continually extended its content and changed to meet the needs of the time.