Raising the Dead and Returning Life: Emergency Medicine of the Qīng Dynasty is essentially a first aid manual based on the practices of the common people of Southern China during the mid-nineteenth century. This book discusses first aid for cases that seem hopeless, such as hangings, drowning, poisoning, freezing, lightning strikes and so forth. Besides this, it includes treatment for trauma, including beatings, caning, burns and scalds, and bites. It also gives prescriptions for tobacco, alcohol, and opium addiction or overdose. Towards the end of the book, the treatment and prevention of epidemic diseases is described, as well as gǔ toxins and unusual diseases.