Abstract: This article focuses on the materiality of school desks at the intersection between teaching knowledge and medical-hygienist knowledge, concerning the replacement of furniture in some public schools in Salvador, from 1881 to 1885, following the opinion of a commission composed of physicians, as well as method teachers from the Men’s Normal Day School. To this end, it uses as sources four Public Instruction reports, requests for school furniture issued by teachers, and two articles published in Gazeta Médica da Bahia on hygiene in schools. Theoretically and methodologically, it is anchored in the French Cultural History, problematizing, from a micro historical perspective, school cultural practices expressed in prescriptions and opinions on school furniture, and in the Brazilian production on the History of Education in terms of School Materiality and School Hygiene.
Keywords:
school materiality; school furniture; school hygiene