Mapping the Hospital: Epidemiology, Infection, and Antibiotic Governance at the Clínica Puerta de Hierro, Madrid, Spain

This article examines how a group of microbiologists organized their practices for the governance of hospital infections, positioning the clinical microbiology laboratory as an obligatory passage point for such interventions and for a new, modern vision of the hospital as an institution cognizant of its infectious risks. Drawing on fieldwork, archival research and oral histories with former members of the laboratory at the Clínica Puerta de Hierro in Madrid, Spain, during the late 1960s, I argue that these microbiologists employed epidemiological tools to claim their authority over antibiotic governance and hospital infections. Particularly relevant was the epidemiological map, a blueprint of the hospital where lab staff pinpointed hospital infections of clinical concern. By describing and showing these paper technologies in symposia, published papers, and conference discussions, the maps both materialized the professional and disciplinary authority of the microbiology lab and assisted in enrolling clinical colleagues into new interventions for managing antibiotic use and containing in-hospital infections. Most significantly, the maps were able to transform the vision of the hospital architecture as infectious landscape, replacing the traditional idea of a space void of infectious risk with a modernized account of an institution capable of effectively controlling and governing the hospital's infectiousness.