Written by Zhang Yuan-su, in three volumes, the year of composition and publication are unknown. The earliest extant version, the Yuan dynasty edition, includes a preface attributed to Zhang Jian (Jifu), stating that the book was written by Zhang Yuan-su to teach his disciples. After 1232, Li Gao, a disciple of Jiegu, specifically requested Zhang Jian to write the preface for this book. Before the late Yuan dynasty, there are no other mentions of this book in literature, nor any records of its circulation. The content of the book also shows signs of later editing, and whether it was personally written by Zhang Yuan-su requires further verification. The main extant versions include: the Yuan dynasty edition, the Ming dynasty edition from the fifth year of the Zhengde era (1510), and the punctuated edition published by the People's Medical Publishing House in 1978.

The book is divided into three volumes: upper, middle, and lower. The upper volume introduces the diagrams of the six visceral manifestations of heaven and earth, the eleven meridian patterns of yin-yang zang-fu organs in the hands and feet, the three talents treatment methods, diseases of the three senses, four causes, and five stagnations, the main treatment methods of six qi, and nine chapters on the main mental methods of treatment. The middle volume lists Neijing main treatment essentials, six qi formula treatments, and elaborates on the five circuits and six qi main pathological theories, primarily absorbing the viewpoints of Liu Wan-su, and includes 62 formulas classified according to the six qi treatment methods. The lower volume focuses on the essentials of drug use, emphasizing the theories of drug properties such as the thickness and thinness of drug flavors, cold and heat yin-yang, ascending and descending, and the guiding and messenger effects of drugs, as well as the five elements' methods of controlling formulas and their interactions.

In terms of drug theory, it establishes and advocates the theory of drug meridian tropism and the guiding and messenger effects of drugs. The development of drug and formula theories has made the clinical differentiation and selection of drugs and formulas more systematic, detailed, and targeted, becoming a practical and widely adopted pharmacological theory by later physicians. The book reflects Zhang Yuan-su's academic thoughts on zang-fu organ theory, drug theory, and clinical formula use in a concentrated manner.