From The Unknown History Department:

Is it ethical to save lives by exploiting them in one of the most crass ways imaginable? The strange story of the man who popularized incubators and saved the lives of countless premature infants by displaying them at the Coney Island sideshow.

Incubator-Baby Side Shows
by William A. Silverman, M.D.
Pediatrics 64(2):127-141, August 1979
Reproduced by permission of Pediatrics.


On the morning of Thursday, March 2, 1950, I read the following obituary in the New York Times:

MARTIN A. COUNEY, "INCUBATOR DOCTOR"

Dr. Martin A. Couney, a specialist in the care of prematurely born infants, who had shown such babies to the public for an admission price at fairs and other exhibitions throughout the United States and in Europe for more than fifty years, died last night at his home, 3728 Surf Avenue, Sea Gate, Coney Island. He was 80 years old. "The Incubator Doctor" as Dr. Couney was informally known, was born in Germany, studied medicine in Breslau, Berlin and Leipzig, receiving an M.D., and later in Paris under Dr. Pierre C. Budin, noted pediatrician, who developed a method of saving the prematurely born.

At the Berlin Exposition in 1896, Dr. Couney operated an exhibit of prematurely born babies to show the Budin technique. The exhibit was a financial success, as was a second one at Earl's Court in London. In 1898 Dr. Couney paid his first visit to the United States and staged an exhibit at the Omaha Trans-Mississipi Exposition. He returned to Paris for the exposition of 1900, but was back in this country for the Buffalo Exposition the next year, and then decided to remain here for good.

For years he had shows at both Dreamland and Luna Park, and the night Dreamland was destroyed by fire the babies were saved by a quick transfer to the Luna Park incubators, some of the lodgers doubling up.
Dr. Couney had one of his Baby Incubators attractions at the New York World's Fair [1939-40]. He leaves a daughter, Hildegarde Couney, long associated with her father's affairs. His wife, Annabelle May Couney, died in 1938.

This biographic sketch triggered a faint memory: I remember being puzzled about the "incubator-baby exhibit" when I walked by what I thought was one of many ordinary side shows in the amusement area of Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition in 1933. Now, 17 years later, my curiosity was rekindled. I decided to pursue the facts about this colorful (and bizarre!) chapter in medical history. I have had a delightful time; the search has taken 28 years (so far), and some loose ends remain. For instance, I have been unable to reconcile some of Couney's accounts (given to various reporters over the years) with the recorded evidence or with statements obtained when I interviewed his nephew, some of his fellow workers, and a number of physicians who knew him. [1]

Again, much stranger than fiction.

The spread of these ideas was spurred on through the curious circumstances which grew out of Budin's request that his young associate, Martin Couney, exhibit the newly-modified Tarnier incubator at the World Exposition in Berlin in 1896. [6] Budin armed the young man with a letter of introduction to Professor Czerny, an illustrious obstetrician. Couney hit upon the idea of placing live premature infants in the infant incubators and asked Czerny's help to obtain the babies. Czerny sent him to Empress Augusta Victoria, the protectress of Berlin's Charity Hospital, who agreed readily: the premature infants were considered to have little chance of survival. Couney brought six incubators and an entourage of Budin's nurses to the exposition and named the exhibit "Kinderbrutanstalt." The notion of a "child hatchery" caught the imagination of the Berlin public and soon there were ribald songs about the exhibit in the beer halls and night clubs. Couney's exhibit was located in the amusement section next to the Congo Village and the Tyrolean Yodlers; it was a huge success, always jammed with people. Several batches of infants were reared at the show and, according to Couney, "there were no deaths." During the exhibit, a London promoter by the name of Samuel Schenkein visited Couney and invited him to repeat the show in London the following year at the Victorian Era Exhibition to be held in Earl's Court. Couney agreed.

I have been able to track down an account of the London exhibit which appeared in a commentary in Lancet, May 29, 1897, entitled "The Use of Incubators for Infants" [4]. The editors reviewed the history of infant incubators, noted 2,534 infant deaths in London for one year attributed to premature birth, and they welcomed any attempt to improve the construction of incubators:

That this has been achieved will, we are informed, shortly be rendered evident by a remarkable exhibit at Earl's Court. A structure is now in the course of erection just opposite the Welcome Club, where infants prematurely born will be nursed and kept in new and model couveuses. The main feature of this new incubator is the fact that it requires no constant and skilled care. It works automatically; both ventilation and heat are maintained without any fluctuations whatsoever, not only for hours, but even for days. The incubator need not be touched for these purposes, and the only attendance necessary is that needed for feeding and washing the infant... Only air taken outside the building is supplied to the infant within the incubator. When we consider how often private houses, and even hospital wards, are inefficiently ventilated, it is not necessary to insist on the advantage of deriving the air-supply direct from the street or garden...