This article intends to analyze some of the strategies implemented by physician-hygienists between the end of 19th Century and the first decades of the 20th Century. The analysis aims to produce a new shape for the school and, at the same time, new devices to organize the pedagogical work. Therefore, this study was based on the the books A hygiene na escola (Hygiene in the school, 1902) and Hygiene escolar e pedagogica (Scholar and pedagogic hygiene,1917). These publications were written by Dr. Balthazar Vieira de Mello, who made the effort to institutionalize the medical inspection at schools in São Paulo State, during different moments of his professional performance as a physician-hygienist.
history of education; medical inspection of schools; scholar culture