The Hospital of the Little Brain was located in a very secret place next to a rice distributor. That was the first surprise of the day for me: I didn’t even know they still had those kinds of distributors.

The little clinic, as seen from outside, was quite gloomy. It looked at first like an abandoned wooden house with its old rusty portal. That is mostly how all the clinics in Japan built during the Meiji (1868–1912) and Taishō (1912–1926) eras looked like. This one was built at the end of World War I. We entered it carefully, as the owner still lived right next to the house. We could basically be seen and heard from anywhere. It was a bit scary but part of the game.

The first room was the waiting room, as well as the pharmacy parlor. Behind this parlor was the room where all the medicine was. There was still a few. The second room, on the left, was the auscultation room. We could imagine the doctor was here, with his desk full of documents, pictures on the wall and nice cozy chairs. There was also a little bed that reminded us of the kind of couch the therapists use. This place was probably taking care of all kinds of diseases, both physical and mental.

The room behind it was way scarier. On a dirty flooring standed an old operation bed and a sink for the doctor to wash his hands and tools. The place became uncomfortable at this point. But the most disturbing part was this jar we found, containing a tiny little brain in it. That was very common at that time: keeping the sick organs of dead patients in a jar in order to analyze them later.

HIGHLIGHTS

– Nice squeaky wooden structure.
– The vintage camera magazines.
– The brain in a portable looking glass bottle.
– The gloomy and hellish Operation Room.
– The soft and ancient colors in the (very messy) Doctor’s Room.

FACTS

• 1918 – 197x