At the top of the Horta neighbourhood, in the middle of the Collserola mountain and just a stone’s throw from the Carmel bunkers, lies a hospital abandoned almost half a century ago: it is the old Barcelona leper colony, a disused center whose farmhouse has been occupied for two decades. Now, Can Masdeu is a social centre, residence and community garden, but it was formerly a center for lepers linked to the Hospital de Sant Paureference in the city and the metropolitan area.

The Can Masdeu farmhouse began to function as a hospital and take in leprosy patients at the beginning of the 20th century, specifically in 1903 after the Sant Pau health center achieved its adjudication. Two years later they came into operation and some of the patients from the main Barcelona center, located in the Raval, in the center of Barcelona, ​​were transferred to that point.

This is stated in the blog of the History of the Hospital de Sant Pau, with old photos of the enclosure where you can see the farmhouse that functioned as a sanatorium and the adjacent land, a huge green area for cultivation. Then the addictive building was built, the health center in question that still retains its original structure today: It is the Sant Llàtzer Hospital, in disuse since it was probably built in 1955. Although it had to function as a center for leprosy, it began its activity with treatments for tuberculosis and then ended up closing its doors.