GEOGRAPHICAL DIVIDE and imagination epitomize how the Chinese conceived themselves , the land , the society they occupied and belonged to, and the world which they assumedly centered . Marta E . Hanson not only writes a very detailed biography of wenbing , or " warm illnesses " ( warm diseases ) a disease category in traditional Chinese medicine from antiquity to the present day , but also explores this opportunity to discuss geographical imagination and epidemiology in late imperial China ( basically the Ming-qing period , 1368-19I1 ) . Three intertwined themes are carefully positioned and discussed in the context in which wenbing gradually developed into a major Chinese medical category . In doing so , Hanson hares with us a fresh approach with many insight.