As a contribution to an introductory issue, this article attempts to summarize some cha-racteristics of the anthroposophical approach to healing. In particular, it aims to illustrate the character of thinking and of language that underlie this approach. Articles appearing in a publi-cation such as this may, because of the specialized language they use and the perhaps unfami-liar methods of thinking they describe, seem peculiar or hard to follow in a first reading. It is hoped that this article will help give insight into these qualities of language and method and that it will illuminate some of the difficulties in writing about something as many-sided as the anthroposophical approach to medicine. The first part of this article is a translation of the first half of an article by Th. Gobel and H. B. von Laue, entitled "Arzneimittelentwicklung in der anthroposophischen Medizin", which appeared in the April, 1977, issue of the German Beitrage zu einer Erweiterung der Heilkunst. The second part, written by Charles and Lisa Davison, continues the discussion of the methods and language – in fact the thinking – underlying the anthroposophical approach to medicine.