There was once a Coney Island saviour .....
From 1903 to 1943 he worked amongst the sideshows and freak shows, somewhere between the midget villages and the death-defying roller coaster rides.
He was a German-Jewish immigrant doctor, shunned by the establishment, and condemned by many as a self-publicist and charlatan, and for working against the will of god.
His name was Martin Couney, and believe it or not, on the board-walks of Coney Island, he operated his Baby Incubators facility as a popular attraction. The sign above the attraction said "All the World Loves a Baby"
Inside, for 25 cents the visitors, suitably controlled by a guard rail, could see real premature babies fighting for their lives, while being tended by a real team of dedicated medical staff (with fully trained nurses wearing starched white uniforms, while the doctors all wore suits topped with physician's white coats). The babies were all encased in incubators, which were being paid for by the 25 cents admission fees.
Doctor Couney was dubbed the "the incubator doctor," and despite the tawdry settings, the operation was cutting edge for the time, as the incubators were the latest models, imported directly from France which was then the world leader in premature infant care. His own daughter, Hildegarde, was born six weeks premature in 1907, weighing just 3lb - treated in one of her fathers incubators, she later trained as a nurse and joined her father's business.
Caring for premature babies has always been expensive, and more so in the US at the time, which was several decades behind Europe in both technology and treatments. Even by 1939 private treatment for premature births, was six dollars a day for wet nurse mother's milk… plus rental of an incubator and hospital room, oxygen, several visits a day by a physician, and fifteen dollars a day for three shifts of nurses - a massive amount of money.
So in 1903, when it cost about $15 a day ($405 or £277 today), to care for each baby in Couney's facility (and more elsewhere), it was well beyond normal peoples means, but the treatment he offered was entirely free to the parents whose children, born prematurely, would certainly have died, if left with the establishment doctors. Many American doctors at the turn of the century believed that premature babies were somehow genetically inferior "weaklings" and left their destiny in the hands of their maker - so they usually died unless they had rich parents.
However the genius and humanity of Couney, meant that not only were thousands of children's lives saved, but the paying visitors came in such great numbers to see the new technology, that Couney covered his operating costs, paid his staff a very good wage, set up another similar attraction/facility in Atlantic City as well as at expositions, and still had enough left over to leave himself a wealthy man.
He wasn't just a doctor, but also a showman and evangelist for child care ... He first exhibited incubators working in London's Earl Court in 1897 (The Lancet medical journal, gave it a glowing write-up). However with a Fair or an Exposition taking place somewhere in the USA every week, he left Europe to live in North America.
He then gave lectures across the USA, as well as exhibiting his Infant Incubator facility across the States - he was fond of pointing out the names of famous men who had been born prematurely, and gone on to achieve great things, such as Mark Twain, Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Charles Darwin, and Sir Isaac Newton.
In many other ways he was ahead of his time, including his emphasis on breast milk and hygiene, with the incubator facility always scrubbed spotlessly clean. More controversially Dr Couney encouraged his nurses to take the babies out of the incubators to hug and kiss them, believing they responded to affection rather than worrying overly about infections.
But despite his success in saving thousands (he later claimed to have saved nearly 6,500 babies with a success rate of 85%), of children's lives for free, there were still regular attempts to shut him down until eventually, even the most reactionary of US doctors accepted ('father of American neonatology', paediatrician Julius Hess became an early collaborator), that he was pointing the way to the future.
Now, decades after his death in 1950, many of the children, grand children and great grandchildren of those whose lives he saved, consider him to be an unsung American hero, and that "he should be famous for what he did".
After all he was in the USA, the father of the incubator.
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| Dr Martin Couney Had To Sometimes Act Like A Showman To Get The Crowds |
From 1903 to 1943 he worked amongst the sideshows and freak shows, somewhere between the midget villages and the death-defying roller coaster rides.
He was a German-Jewish immigrant doctor, shunned by the establishment, and condemned by many as a self-publicist and charlatan, and for working against the will of god.
 |
| Coney Island Baby Incubator Facility |
His name was Martin Couney, and believe it or not, on the board-walks of Coney Island, he operated his Baby Incubators facility as a popular attraction. The sign above the attraction said "All the World Loves a Baby"
 |
| Inside for 25 Cents Visitors Faced A Guard Rail And Nurses |
Inside, for 25 cents the visitors, suitably controlled by a guard rail, could see real premature babies fighting for their lives, while being tended by a real team of dedicated medical staff (with fully trained nurses wearing starched white uniforms, while the doctors all wore suits topped with physician's white coats). The babies were all encased in incubators, which were being paid for by the 25 cents admission fees.
Doctor Couney was dubbed the "the incubator doctor," and despite the tawdry settings, the operation was cutting edge for the time, as the incubators were the latest models, imported directly from France which was then the world leader in premature infant care. His own daughter, Hildegarde, was born six weeks premature in 1907, weighing just 3lb - treated in one of her fathers incubators, she later trained as a nurse and joined her father's business.
Caring for premature babies has always been expensive, and more so in the US at the time, which was several decades behind Europe in both technology and treatments. Even by 1939 private treatment for premature births, was six dollars a day for wet nurse mother's milk… plus rental of an incubator and hospital room, oxygen, several visits a day by a physician, and fifteen dollars a day for three shifts of nurses - a massive amount of money.
So in 1903, when it cost about $15 a day ($405 or £277 today), to care for each baby in Couney's facility (and more elsewhere), it was well beyond normal peoples means, but the treatment he offered was entirely free to the parents whose children, born prematurely, would certainly have died, if left with the establishment doctors. Many American doctors at the turn of the century believed that premature babies were somehow genetically inferior "weaklings" and left their destiny in the hands of their maker - so they usually died unless they had rich parents.
 |
| Clothes Several Sizes Too Large And A Big Bow To Emphasize How Small They Were. |
However the genius and humanity of Couney, meant that not only were thousands of children's lives saved, but the paying visitors came in such great numbers to see the new technology, that Couney covered his operating costs, paid his staff a very good wage, set up another similar attraction/facility in Atlantic City as well as at expositions, and still had enough left over to leave himself a wealthy man.
He wasn't just a doctor, but also a showman and evangelist for child care ... He first exhibited incubators working in London's Earl Court in 1897 (The Lancet medical journal, gave it a glowing write-up). However with a Fair or an Exposition taking place somewhere in the USA every week, he left Europe to live in North America.
He then gave lectures across the USA, as well as exhibiting his Infant Incubator facility across the States - he was fond of pointing out the names of famous men who had been born prematurely, and gone on to achieve great things, such as Mark Twain, Napoleon, Victor Hugo, Charles Darwin, and Sir Isaac Newton.
In many other ways he was ahead of his time, including his emphasis on breast milk and hygiene, with the incubator facility always scrubbed spotlessly clean. More controversially Dr Couney encouraged his nurses to take the babies out of the incubators to hug and kiss them, believing they responded to affection rather than worrying overly about infections.
But despite his success in saving thousands (he later claimed to have saved nearly 6,500 babies with a success rate of 85%), of children's lives for free, there were still regular attempts to shut him down until eventually, even the most reactionary of US doctors accepted ('father of American neonatology', paediatrician Julius Hess became an early collaborator), that he was pointing the way to the future.
Now, decades after his death in 1950, many of the children, grand children and great grandchildren of those whose lives he saved, consider him to be an unsung American hero, and that "he should be famous for what he did".
After all he was in the USA, the father of the incubator.
What a great story, Doctor Couney was a hero. It brought to mind the film The Dallas Buyer's Club about an unorthodox attempt to get drugs to the first Aids victims. An excellent watch.
ReplyDeleteGlad you enjoyed it. There are unsung heroes all around the world, so its nice to publicise them now and then.
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