Hygienist policy for children in Latin America: the cases of Argentina and Brazil in the 19th and 20th centuries

Abstract

This article problematizes which hygienist policies were designed and innovative for childhood, at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, in Latin America (Argentina and Brazil)? The relevance of the object of study is justified by carrying out an investigation into an important topic in the field of the history of education and childhood, with the intention of revealing how hygienist thinking was shaped in the care and education of children in these representative countries. The objective of the article was to discuss hygienist policy for children in Latin America, especially in Argentina, in the city of Buenos Aires, and in Brazil, during the period in question, highlighting the actions and measures in the care and education of children at the end of the century. XIX and beginning of the XX. The methodology adopted was of a historical nature and of a bibliographic and documentary nature. The main documentary sources used were educational legislation, reports and educational printed materials, in the period from 1870 to 1925. An analysis of the sources made it possible to identify that the hygienist movement in Argentina and Brazil played an important role in combating infant mortality and the diseases that affected specific portion of the population. In the context of childhood, in two countries, doctors disseminated their precepts to families with guidance for mothers, as well as in the school context, through medical-sanitary inspections, which had the purpose of cleaning and moralizing the child's body in the direction of of forming a strong and healthy childhood to contribute to the progress and civility desired in the republican ideology.