ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the debate on the creation of school clinics in the city of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) during the first half of the 20th century. It also examines this service's institutionalisation process and the practices adopted to treat the diseases identified, following internationally disseminated models. As the chapter shows, the forms of action led to the production of clinical and therapeutic knowledge within the city's public education system which represented a shift in the model employed at the time, primarily concerned with identifying health risks to prevent illness. The analysis of the controversies surrounding this project makes it possible to understand how the pupil's body became the object of a series of discourses and practices focussed not only on preventing disease and maintaining health but also on treating identified ailments. The chapter sheds light on changes in the treatment of school health issues in response to the spread of schooling, the modernisation of the country and the development of social medicine. This shift represented a redirection of investment in the body of schoolchildren.
