This paper has the objective of analyzing the first Brazilian institution for working with abnormal children, the Bourneville Pavilion-School, at the National Asylum, which operated during the early 20th century. The knowledge at the time regarding diagnoses of children is summarized, together with the medical-pedagogical methods applied at that institution. The manner in which children became the object of psychiatric science and public policies during that period is also treated.
Childhood; psychiatry; medicine; education