“For a kiss from your mouth”: Assistance to infant health in the magazine Salud y Sanidad of Colombia (Decade of 1930)

Abstract

This article analyzes the medical-hygienist discourses of dental professionals on Colombian children in the decade of 1930, published in the magazine Salud y Sanidad. For that, a documentary research of bibliographical and exploratory approach was developed. In the analysis, we dialogued with the theory that rethinks the concepts of reading and appropriation of discourses constructed by the New Cultural History, which enabled us to problematize the ways of reading and the ways of prescribing the sanitized, civilized, modern and educated body in the optics assistance to children's oral health. It is considered that the understanding of oral health as a strategy adopted by the Colombian State in favor of the modernity of its citizens, unfolds in the understanding that the children were targets of assistentialists practices and normative methods. These methods are found: 1) in family activities; 2) in school activities; 3) in professional activities, in which the dentists are located, inserted in the school spaces to watch, care and prevent diseases, promoting regulations on healthy bodies through clinical evaluations and to encourage practices such as brushing.