In 1294, the borders of the Mongol empire reached as far as the
edge of modern-day Hungary. It was the largest contiguous empire
that the world had ever seen, a feat that has still not been
bested today. The reasons for the success of the Mongol armies are
many and varied, but one often-overlooked factor mentioned by
scholars was the effectiveness of the Mongolian system of
medicine. At the time of Genghis Khan, this system had already
been in existence for roughly 1,900 years.

By the Twentieth Century, Mongolian traditional medicine (MTM) had
been around for two-and-a-half millennia. Its holistic therapies
had ties to both Chinese and Tibetan medical systems, and were
based on massage, prayer, animal parts and plants that could be
easily found around the steppe.

Then from the 1930s, under the Soviet system, Mongolia and East
Germany began a barter-based trade relationship. Under this
arrangement, Mongolia provided such commodities as cobalt and furs
in exchange for, among other things, western medicine.

Not only did this relationship encourage people to embrace the
quick, but localized, relief of western drugs, but during that
period, the government actively ignored traditional Mongolian
medicine. Then, 60 years later, at the end of the 1980s, the
collapse of the soviet system brought with it the end of the intra-
bloc structures that had been established as well. Mongolia's
medical system was hit hard. While the barter system had lasted,
there had been affordable medicine. Without it, Mongolia was
forced to purchase medicine from the West at normal, western
prices. This meant a drastic increase in price, effectively
denying treatment to a large segment of the population.

The only option for most sick people was to either stay sick or to
begin using traditional remedies.

This was a problem at that point; as more than 60 years had passed
since traditional medicine began to be ignored, there were
precious few doctors left who understood this kind of medicine.
There were also no official standards, encouraging more than a few
people to begin, in effect, selling rainwater as serum.