Christian Trédaniel, Founder of Etiopathy, was born in Paris in 1934. He studied philosophy, logic and mathematics. During an athletic competition in the mid 1950's, an accident left him with sciatic neuralgia. Faced with this disorder, traditional medicine showed its usual incompetence despite Mr. Trédaniel's thirty-five infiltrations. Thanks to André de Sambucy, a doctor with a long-standing interest in manual healing techniques, Christian Trédaniel recovered his health after three years of suffering. From then on he dedicated himself to the study of traditional healing techniques. As de Sambucy's assistant, he perfected his mentor's practices and techniques. He mainly concentrated his studies on the physiological processes involved in manual physical therapy capable of ridding the patient of pain.

Starting in 1959, Christian Trédaniel established the rules of analysis of pathogenic and therapeutic processes which would later become The Fundamental Principles for Etiopathic Medicine.

After a visit to the US, he was convinced that traditional medicine was heading the wrong way: theory could not explain what was seen in practice. Back in Europe, he first founded the European College of Etiopathy with some friends, followed by another institution of higher learning in Geneva. After the creation of the first school of etiopathy in Paris, another one opened its doors in Rennes (1986), in Toulouse (1998) and in Lyon (2004).

For the past decade, Christian Trédaniel has been working on a variety of projects relating to etiopathy: the development of etiopathic studies; editing his principles of analysis; a historical study of manual and systemic medical movements; and, more recently, the elaboration of a new curriculum for teaching neurology and memorization processes.