Calle del Doctor Santero

Before bearing a doctor’s name, this street was called de Canuto González, and the reason was thoroughly earthly: that man ran an open-air eating house famous in the area. Those were times when Bellas Vistas served as a recreation ground for the working classes, with the tram depots a step away and the switching rails crossing the ground. In 1902 the city council traded the eating house for science. The street came to recall Tomás Santero y Moreno (Madrid, 1817-1888), a doctor of medicine, professor at the Central University and physician to the Royal Household, who presided over the Royal Academy of Medicine in 1885. He championed a conservative medicine, faithful to Hippocrates and wary of novelties. The eating house was erased from the map; the screech of the trams, too.