[Mental hygiene in early childhood: the Clínica de Eufrenia and Serviço de Ortofrenia e Higiene Mental, 1934-1939].

This article analyzes how mental hygiene became a central theme in the debate on national development in the 1920s and 1930s, examining the work of the Clínica de Eufrenia (1931) created by the Liga Brasileira de Higiene Mental and the Serviço de Ortofrenia e Higiene Mental (1934), both in Rio de Janeiro and established during the Anísio Teixeira reform. Despite following different approaches, they considered the child as a locus to intervene and construct the Brazilian of the future: strong, healthy, and productive. This analysis includes some clinical cases from these institutions, writings by their directors (the physicians Mirandolino Caldas and Arthur Ramos), and the Brazilian Mental Hygiene Archives.