The medicines that are used in anthroposophic medicine (also often referred to as “remedies”) come from the natural world. Most are prepared from plants and minerals, a select few from the animal world, with very special attention given to the purity and quality of the substances. While most conventional pharmaceutical drugs are made synthetically, usually from petroleum, anthroposophic medicines are sourced from nature, and handled thoughtfully and carefully to protect the living qualities of the substance. This is important, because the chemical composition of a substance is an important “footprint” of the particular plant, but it is not the whole thing. In a way it is at most a marker of what happens when the process of a plant comes to rest. There is a chemical pattern which is representative of a process, but it is not the whole process. Anthroposophic medicines are trying to incorporate the whole process of a mineral, plant, or animal.