Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the meaning of child health as applied by school doctors in the Netherlands and the way it was adapted to the rapidly improving standard of living and the increasing importance of mental health after the Second World War. The extension of the concept beyond physical health into emotional and social well-being is particularly interesting as the school medical inspection was the only public child-hygienic service in a country where religious groups opposed the extension of public hygienic care into parenting and the family. Design/methodology/approach On the basis of secondary literature, the paper discusses the early development of Dutch school medical inspection from a comparative perspective. Changes in the national authority’s and the school doctors’ concepts of what a “healthy” child was between the 1930s and 1970 are examined using a variety of primary sources. These concern both the national discourse and sources that shed light on the daily practice of school medical inspection from the single province for which these are available. Findings Although they adopted a new and more inclusive concept of health in theory, school doctors in the Netherlands were reluctant to actually take up issues of mental health in their daily practice. This reluctance was inspired by the fear of losing their pivotal role in child hygiene and their status as public servants. Originality/value Studies in the history of school medical services have focussed mainly on their establishment and development as an institution. They seldom extend into the post-war era and do not discuss the extension of the inspection into mental health.

中文翻译：

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1904-1970年，荷兰学校医疗检查和“健康”儿童

目的本文的目的是探讨荷兰学校医生应用的儿童健康的含义，以及如何适应第二次世界大战后迅速提高的生活水平和心理健康的重要性。将概念从身体健康扩展到情感和社会福祉特别有趣，因为学校医疗检查是该国宗教团体反对将公共卫生保健扩展到父母和家庭的国家中唯一的公共儿童卫生服务。设计/方法/方法在中学文献的基础上，本文从比较的角度讨论了荷兰学校医学检查的早期发展。使用多种主要来源研究了国家机关和学校医生关于1930到1970年间“健康”孩子的概念的变化。这些既涉及国家话语，也涉及从单个省份获得学校医疗检查的日常实践的资料。调查结果尽管他们在理论上采用了新的，更具包容性的健康概念，但荷兰的学校医生不愿在日常实践中实际处理心理健康问题。这种不情愿是由于害怕失去他们在儿童卫生中的关键作用以及他们作为公务员的地位而引起的。原创性/价值在学校医疗服务历史上的研究主要集中在其作为机构的建立和发展上。