Ita Wegman

In 1917, having opened an independent practice, she developed a cancer treatment using an extract of mistletoe following indications from Steiner.

A number of other doctors joined the institute, which grew steadily over the next years as a first center for anthroposophical medicine.

In 1922 she founded a therapeutic home for mentally disabled children, Haus Sonnenhof, also in Arlesheim, and co-founded a pharmaceutical laboratory, Weleda, that has since grown into a significant producer of medicines and health-care products.

In the following year, Rudolf Steiner asked Wegman to join the Executive Council of the newly reformed Anthroposophical Society at the Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland.

The medical work flourished, however, and Wegman travelled extensively in support of the rapidly growing movement to extend medicine's limits; she was especially active in the Netherlands and England during this time.