Hygienism was a medical doctrine that incorporated into the treatment of the disease the social aspects that were directly related to it. One of the fields where hygienic doctrine had the greatest impact on the exercise of prostitution was in addition to normal medical practice in addition to a study of the causes of its exercise and the inclusion of a series of prophylactic measures of moral content, designed to control and shape social behaviour and prevent the effects of contagion of veneous and siliceous diseases. This content was reflected in the successive prostitution regulations enacted in the most important cities of Spain since the mid-19th century. Those regulations included the creation of special hygiene sections intended to record, prevent and control the exercise of prostitution and the diseases resulting therefrom. In Barcelona, during the restauration, the Special Hygiene Section, chaired by Carlos Ronquillo, had a particular impact on the treatment of prostitution as a social disease and of female prostitute as a victim of the precarious social and employment circumstances of proletarianisation, in the industrial city of the late 19th century.