Koishikawa Yōjōsho, Medical facility in Koishikawa, Bunkyō, Japan.
The Koishikawa Yōjōsho was a medical facility built on the site of a former medicinal herb garden, now part of the Koishikawa Botanical Gardens. The place was designed to treat poor patients and grow healing plants for medical use.
The shogunate established this facility in 1722 following the recommendation of physician Ogawa Shosen to serve poor patients. It later merged with Tokyo University's medical school and became part of the modern healthcare system.
This place represents how medical care became organized and accessible to all social classes during the Edo period. You can sense how healing was treated as a public responsibility rather than a private service.
The site is located within the Koishikawa Botanical Gardens, which are easy to reach on foot. Visit during garden hours to explore both the historical structures and the surrounding plant collections.
The facility combined traditional Japanese healing methods with the systematic cultivation of medicinal plants in its own gardens. This blend of healing arts and botany made it an early example of evidence-based medical practice.
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