This book begins with the presentation of the liver and gall bladder in the first part of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, Neijing Suwen chapter 8 and continues by looking at the five phase resonances of wood and liver as set out in Suwen chapters 2, 4, 5, and 9.

The second part of the book discusses the physiology and functions of the liver, its relationships with qi and blood, with emotions, with digestion and assimilation, with the muscular forces (jin) and with jue yin. All of these explorations are well rooted in textual references and explanations of Chinese characters.

The causes of disease in the liver are then examined, followed by a section on the liver's functions and related symptomatology. There is a short section on the gall bladder, and finally a discussion of the syndromes of the liver and gallbladder.

An appendix brings together key texts from the Neijing and one of the major commentaries, and gives a brief summary of principal causes of disease, symptoms and syndromes. An index contains all the Chinese terms found in the book along with the main concepts.