author
Gao Li
1180–1251
A major physician of the Jin dynasty, he became one of the most influential voices in traditional Chinese medicine. His writings on digestion, vitality, and internal injury helped shape medical thinking for centuries.
1 Audiobook
脾胃論
by Gao Li
About the author
Known in Chinese as Li Gao and often called Li Dongyuan, he lived from 1180 to 1251 and came from Zhending in present-day Hebei. Later tradition remembers him as one of the four great masters of Jin and Yuan medicine.
He is especially associated with the idea that the spleen and stomach play a central role in health. His best-known work, Pi Wei Lun (Treatise on the Spleen and Stomach), argues that weakness, poor diet, overwork, and internal injury can damage the body's vital energy, and it became a foundational text in traditional Chinese medicine.
Readers coming to his work today will find a writer deeply concerned with how everyday habits affect well-being. Even after many centuries, his practical focus on digestion, strength, and recovery has kept his name alive in medical history.