ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a vision of the urban geography of the Barrio Chino. Urban geography, urban planning and architectural design are paramount to understanding medical cultures centred in such a particular area of the city as the underworld. It explains the microgeography of a single street and its immediate neighbourhood to observe not only the diverse world based on show business and sex, but also the consequences thereof, both hygienic and sanitary. The chapter shows one of the premises of that street, the anatomical museum run by the business entrepreneur Francesc Roca, to reflect on the ambiguities and limitations that the regime of control that social medicine attempted to impose from above was facing. From its role as prescribers and expert advisors to municipal, regional or national authorities, as well as some of the appropriations the end users of these policies made of the content, materials or speeches that were destined for them.
