“For the higher glory of our Brazil:” infant oral health education and care, 1912-1940

Abstract Educational actions and campaigns in the area of dentistry geared towards children are addressed, focusing on the introduction of dental cabinets, or offices, at public schools and the creation of “good teeth” competitions to spread modern precepts of hygiene. Dentists were key agents in the spread of “modern dental science” at schools and different institutions, taking part in educational activities and also in actions and struggles for public policies that recognized the issues of oral health. The article is based on extensive research of a variety of documental sources and, through dialogues with the new cultural history, questions the ways oral health was prescribed in the early decades of the twentieth century.