In the Song Dynasty, there was a famous surgeon named Zhang Xiaoniangzi. Her medical skills were neither handed down from her ancestors, nor learned from her husband while practicing medicine with him. How did she learn her skills, then?

Legend has it that when Zhang Xiaoniangzi was young, one day, a roaming doctor passed by her house and asked her for some water. Zhang Xiaoniangzi noticed that the doctor was a white-haired old man with a dignified and impressive appearance. She then invited him in, offered him a seat and served him some tea. She also treated him to a meal. 

Impressed by her intelligent, virtuous and hardworking nature, the old doctor taught her some secret recipes for operations, ointment making etc. He also gave her a highly-secret book entitled Special Prescriptions for Carbuncles and Abscesses. After her long-time medical practices, Zhang Xiaoniangzi became a proficient woman surgeon.  

Patients suffering from carbuncles and abscesses all came to her for treatment and no one went away without significant curative effect. She therefore enjoyed great fame and there were more patients than she could attend to. She then taught surgical skills to her husband, who also became a famous doctor in the area.