Anthroposophic Medicinal Products
Anthroposophic medicinal products are conceived, developed, and produced following the investigation of the relationship between man and nature in a process-oriented way: Raw materials are considered to be the result of the formative forces of the mineral, plant, and animal worlds. These forces are similar to the formative forces acting on the human organism, whether healthy or diseased. The study of formative forces is the specific discipline within anthroposophic pharmacy.
According to the starting hypothesis the relationship between the human being and the origin of the substances exists at “three plus one” levels:
| Human | Nature |
| Physical level, visible and measurable | mineral world |
| Life- maintenance level, maintenance of biological identity, regeneration and physiological functions | plant world |
| Impulse level, passion, feeling, movement and psychological organisation | animal world |
| Individual level, biography, self consciousness, creativity and self-determination | unique to humanity |
Furthermore it asserts that man and nature have an interconnected evolutional history during which gradually man has emancipated himself from nature. In illness though man finds himself becoming similar to the processes in nature. This constitutes the rationale why in order to regain control over his humanity, transformed natural substances can be administered as medicines. Raw materials from nature are then to be processed in such a way to be incline to stimulate the „overcoming“ of the nature-similar processes characteristic of the diseased state.
Anthroposophic medicinal products are defined in the German Drug Law, article 4 (33).
Read more about this topic: Anthroposophic Pharmacy
Famous quotes containing the words medicinal and/or products:
“Our Indian said that he was a doctor, and could tell me some medicinal use for every plant I could show him ... proving himself as good as his word. According to his account, he had acquired such knowledge in his youth from a wise old Indian with whom he associated, and he lamented that the present generation of Indians “had lost a great deal.””
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Good wine needs no bush,
And perhaps products that people really want need no
hard-sell or soft-sell TV push.
Why not?
Look at pot.”
—Ogden Nash (1902–1971)