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The History of the Coney Island Incubator Babies

  • Writer: FibonacciMD
    FibonacciMD
  • Jun 10
  • 5 min read

Updated: 6 hours ago

The Unconventional History of Coney Island's Incubator Babies

Incubator exhibit at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition in 1901
Incubator exhibit at the Buffalo Pan-American Exposition in 1901

It's hard to believe that there was a time when the safest place for premature babies was in an amusement park exhibit rather than a hospital, but that was precisely the situation in from the late 1800s through to the 1940s.


In the 1870s, Dr. Stéphane Tarnier, a French obstetrician, witnessed an incubator warming baby chickens at a Parisian zoo and thought if he could make a similar device, it could save premature babies from dying of hypothermia.  At the time, most premature infants died, and many doctors felt caring for them was pointless.  Tarnier’s initial designs weren't much better than blankets or hot water bottles used in many maternity wards.  However, Pierre Budin was a French physician who improved on the design, adding thermostats and improved ventilation. He reportedly asked his German medical student Dr. Martin Couney, to show off his device at the 1896 Berlin World’s Fair.  They “borrowed” six babies from a Berlin hospital, all of whom survived.  Couney later decided to exhibit the incubators at various exhibitions: London in 1897, Omaha in 1898, and Buffalo in 1901.  In 1903, he opened an incubator baby exhibit at the Luna Park section of the Coney Island Amusement Park and charged visitors to view the infants.  It soon became one of the most popular exhibits at Coney Island and was situated next to rides and freak shows.  There were barkers outside the exhibit to help attract customers.  In 1922, one of them was Archibald Leach, a British actor who would later change his name to Cary Grant.


The cost of admission was 25 cents (about $9 in today’s dollars), but it was costing around $15 per day to take care of each infant (about $545 in today’s dollars).  Couney never charged the parents for his services and took care of infants of all races and classes.  He eventually opened a second unit in the Coney Island Dreamland section (which burned down in 1911 with no injuries to the babies) and later opened an Atlantic City exhibit, as well as showing the incubator babies at other exhibitions, including the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair and the 1939 New York World’s Fair.


Coney Island Baby Incubator exhibit on the right side behind the luna ride.
Coney Island Baby Incubator exhibit on the right side behind the luna ride.

Premature infants were sent to him from local maternity wards, which were not able to properly take care of them, but occasionally parents would bring them in.  Doctors, nurses, and wet nurses were hired to take care of the infants and offered a standard of care that no hospital in the country could match.  He had exacting standards, and it was reported he would fire any wet nurse found eating hot dogs or having an orange sugared drink.  He even treated one of his daughters in the exhibit who was born prematurely, and who as an adult later worked as a nurse with the infants.


Martin and Hildegarde Couney with boy looking at baby in incubator at NY World’s Fair
Martin and Hildegarde Couney with boy looking at baby in incubator at NY World’s Fair

His therapy was not accepted by the medical establishment for many years.  He was viewed by some as a tasteless showman.  The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children accused Couney of exploiting the babies and endangering their lives by putting them in an exhibit.  However, one of Couney’s supporters was Dr. Julius Hess, considered today to be the father of American neonatology, who, at the 1933-1934 Chicago World’s Fair, partnered with Couney to open an incubator baby exhibit.


Couney claimed to have an 85% survival rate, and over the course of his career saved 6,500 infants.  Even as late as the 1930s, a U.S. hospital might have no incubators or only one.  Care of these infants could prove to be prohibitively expensive, needing round-the-clock care, so Couney still received premature infants needing care from hospitals.


Martin Couney holding two babies at the NY World’s Fair
Martin Couney holding two babies at the NY World’s Fair

Beth Allen, born in 1941 and one of the babies treated by Couney, spoke of hospital medical care for premature infants at the time: “The doctors didn’t want it. They felt that the babies were weaklings. Either they lived or they died, and nobody made any great effort to save them.”


The 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair was a financial disaster for Couney.  The structure was very expensive to build, requiring living quarters for over 20 staff members, and incubator babies were by this time no longer new and exciting to the general public.  In 1940, he tried to donate his incubators to the City of New York, but the offer was refused.


In 1943, feeling his work was done, Couney closed his Coney Island exhibit when Cornell Hospital in New York City became the first hospital in the country to have a dedicated premature infant unit with incubators.  He died in 1950, reportedly penniless.


The idea of a premature infant incubator exhibit, located next to amusement park rides and freak shows, and financed by the admission fees of visitors, sounds amazingly implausible today.  However, Couney’s treatment of premature infants was years ahead of the U.S. medical establishment, which took over 40 years to officially adopt his methods.


….….But that is not the end of the story.  Further investigation years later discovered that Couney was actually born Martin Cohen (or Cohn) in Prussia.  Although he said he studied medicine in Leipzig and Berlin, there was no evidence he actually was enrolled there.  One author claimed Couney was too young when he emigrated to the U.S. to have studied with Pierre Budin.  There is a question whether he actually was at the Berlin World’s Fair at all.  In the 1910 census, Couney reportedly listed his occupation as “surgical instruments”, but in 1930 his occupation on the census was “physician”  Thus, Couney’s entire background history may have been fraudulent, and if so, he could have potentially faced arrest.  There is a possibility that Couney imitated Alexandre Lion, a European inventor who improved Tarnier’s initial incubator designs and started running infant incubator exhibits at international exhibitions.  However, despite all that possibly being true, Couney’s contributions to premature infant care and the thousands of infants whose lives he saved cannot be denied.


Baby incubator exhibit 1939 NY World’s Fair
Baby incubator exhibit 1939 NY World’s Fair

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