This is a novelization of the life and struggles of the first doctor in the world to perform successfuly surgery for breast cancer. The professional battle to overcome the scourge of breast cancer is mirrored by the surgeon's tempestuous duels with his domineering female family members. The role of the Japanese woman in modern society still retains many of the characteristics that it had in the late eighteenth century, when this novel takes place. In those days, the life of a woman, whether married or single, was one of unending drudgery and toil.