The Ghost’s Clinic

One can easily notice: I am addicted to the abandoned clinics in Japan. I tried to visit a lot of them, looking for something particularly odd, mysterious place that would sent me to an alternative place between the past and my imagination. I loved most of the abandoned clinics I visited but still, something was always lacking, the atmosphere was never truly complete. Until that day, when I traveled to the island of Shikoku.

The Ghost’s Clinic was really far away and required a long drive to the prefecture of Tokushima. Since I had never seen any pictures of the actual inside, that was a bet. I had no idea if the place was worth seeing or even if it was still there. This is part of the haikyo game. The only photo I had seen was a peek through a slightly opened window. A colorful shot. I would always have regretted it if I had not tried to go.

I got my first thrill when I finally faced the beautiful place itself. It is there! And it is abandoned! Three big wooden houses surrounded by trees, swamped in a bunch of green foliage. Next door, an old woman was working in her vegetable garden, ignoring our presence completely.

I opened the squeaky door, wondering what I was about to discover. Past it, we found ourselves in a small waiting room with just one chair. It was completely dark. The floor and the structure in general were in a very bad state so we walked carefully. We could see a passage leading to the examination room. On the right, the pharmacy counter, where drugs and payment were exchanged through a little opening in the wall. Behind it, a lot of colors, glittering in the darkness.

My god, it is full of stars! All of them shining and tickling my eyes. That was an old apothecary, the most impressive one I had ever seen. This was also exactly what the photo I found was showing in the dark! I took a close look at them, trying to read. One of them was Coramine, a stimulant used against overdoses, now a forbidden product. I have only seen it in Philippines, to feed the fighting cocks. I stayed in the old apothecary for at least an hour, looking at everything, from every angle.

There were two observation rooms. One of them had an old comfy-looking dentist chair with a wooden desk in front. The scene was beautiful even though it lacked light. The second one looked more like a study room with many books written in German and even more magical potions.

The rest of the house consisted of dining room bedrooms, all quite empty. There was a pile of newspapers in which I tried to find the most recent one. It seemed to be 1962. I really wonder how people around feel like about living all their life next to this place.

Please have a look at the article Abandoned Hospitals of Japan on Totoro Times, you might love it!