Kidai Shoran (detail) © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Asian Art Museum, National Museums in Berlin), former collection of Hans-Joachim and Inge Küster, gift of Manfred Bohms 2002, photography: Tadao Kodaira

16Pharmaceutical wholesalers

Many medicine shops lined Nihonbashi’s Honchō Street, selling natural remedies and medicines from all over Japan to samurai and townspeople. Signboards advertised the names of medications and their properties. Today, many pharmaceutical companies have their headquarters in the Nihonbashi area, and there is a medicine museum and a shrine to the gods of medicine (Yakuso Jinja).


Kusuri Museum
Origin of Yakusojin (Tokyo Pharmaceutical Affairs Association)