Born in Beijing in 1919, Dr. LI ZHISUI descended from a long line of eminent doctors—his great-grandfather was physician to the Chinese emperor. Dr. Li received an M.D. from the West China Union University Medical School in 1945. He moved to Australia in 1948, returned to China in 1949, and was invited in 1950 to become the director of the Zhongnanhai health clinic, the top-secret facility that serviced the medical needs of Mao Zedong's inner circle. Dr. Li was appointed Chairman Mao's personal physician in 1954, a position he held until the Chairman's death in 1976. During this time, Dr. Li was also deputy secretary-general of the Medical Science Committee of the Ministry of Public Health. In 1980, Dr. Li was elected deputy vice-president of the Chinese Medical Association and of the Gerontological Society of China. The chief editor of both the National Medical Journal of China and the Chinese edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Li published numerous studies of his own in medical journals. In 1988 he moved to Chicago, where he died, shortly after the publication of this book, on February 14, 1995.