Émile Coué was a French apothecary who noticed that, while most of his drugs didn’t really work, the placebo effect was strong enough that people seemed to be curing themselves. Unwilling to expose people to medications that might harm them, he closed his shop and became a psychologist, teaching people about the power of positive self-talk.

He provided healthcare to the Jews, often free of charge. His pharmacy became a location for underground activity. He helped Jews change their identities and hide on the premises when threatened with deportation. He has been named Righteous Among Nations.

Friedrich Sertürner, who discovered morphine

"It takes courage to be among the first to depart from the conventional pathways to the unblazed trails where progress is made. In such departures the "adventurer," be he an association or an individual, is often referred to as someone on 'cloud nine,' an idealist, and often too, he meets with the outright hostility of his colleagues who do not want the status quo changed. These objectors, the truly unrealistic ones, are those who never learn history's one important lesson: namely, 'nothing is permanent but change."