it encapsulates, simply, all of time and the world as it was known - the four elements (earth, air, water, fire) and their celestial counterparts (the signs, the planets, the sun and the moon), disquisitions on flora and fauna, the types of people born in each month, and the four humors.

it gives step by step instructions in purging, bloodletting and cupping, explanations of health and disease, signs of plague, earthquake and famine, the harbingers of rain, wind or drought and myriad folk remedies. the tome's full title puts it succinctly, 'the non plus ultra of the lunar calendar and perpetual general prognosis, especially for all kingdoms and provinces'.