The book, along with general information about Chinese internal alchemy and its schools, contains a translation of a treatise by Zhao Bichen, the eleventh patriarch of the Taoist alchemical school of Wu Liu. The treatise was written at the beginning of the 20th century. It attempts to describe Taoist methods of nurturing life and achieving immortality using the concepts of modern Western medicine. The treatise describes Taoist exercises practiced in schools of internal alchemy for many centuries. The advantage of the text is a fairly clear presentation of the psychophysiological methods of Taoist yoga, usually presented using alchemical symbolism that is very difficult for a European to understand.