The second volume of the Practical Traditional Chinese Medicine and Pharmacology series is intended to acupuncture practitioners and students. Instead of expounding largely and copiously on acupuncture theories and principles, the authors stressed in the book more on its practical value and applicability than theoretical explorations. It is mainly of their personal experiences accumulated from years of teaching and clinical practice.

The book is divided into three chapters. The first chapter introduces the most essential and practical techniques as well as the points which merit special attention in applying acupuncture treatments. The second chapter is devoted to the most commonly used acupoints. With a view to practicability and convenience, the authors have not only explained the location, function, pathological indications of each point as almost all books on acupuncture do, but also provided detailed information on the main points to be combined with the current point in treating different types of diseases as well as point variations for the different syndromes of the same disease. Notes are made also to the needling method for each point. The third chapter deals with acupuncture treatments of common diseases. Again in order to make the book more practical and convenient for clinical use, they did not follow the conventional practice of merely mentioning the syndromes and listing the points. Instead the first differentiated each case to determine the nature of its syndrome type as a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine would have done in the clinic. That is to determine whether the syndromes are of the yin, yang, xu, or shi type. Then different methods as well as their purpose and functions are suggested for each type. All these treatments were used personally and found very effective. Case studies are given to the specially effective cases.