ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that medical theories went through transformations from the Northern Song to the Yuan period and that the Mongol conquest of China played important roles. The unification of China tore down the so-called Iron Curtain between the Jin and Southern Song and let the cultural legacies of the two regions interact with each other. The Mongol's occupations of northern cities and the resulting sufferings of the residents prompted Li Gao to focus on illnesses caused by abnormal human behaviors rather than the cosmological influences that his Jin predecessors had paid attention to. The Mongols active recruitment of physicians into the military and government gave Li Gao's disciple, Luo Tianyi, opportunities to interact with medical practitioners from other areas, test Lis theories, and eventually to publish his book. The Mongol's establishment of the Eurasian empire promoted medical exchanges between China and other parts of the world. West Asians built medical institutions that provided services in the Yuan capital.
