Dr Couney Incubator Babies
Couney, also known as 'the Incubator Doctor', was best known in medical circles and public view for his amusement park sideshow, "The Infantorium", in which visitors paid 25 cents to view prematurely born babies displayed in incubators. Martin Couney had run infant incubator exhibits, in which premature babies were displayed to the public, for more than three decades, most famously at Coney Island in New York City. Developed for infants in the 1880s, in Paris, Couney first displayed incubatorswith babiesat the Berlin Exposition in 1896.
From there he traveled to more expositions, including an event in... Known as the Incubator Doctor, Martin Couney was a controversial figure in the early 20th century. But today, hes recognized as a hero who saved thousands of vulnerable infants.
New York Public Library Martin Couney holds two premature babies he saved with his innovative child incubators. A controversial figure in the history of neonatology, Dr. Martin Couney made a career of exhibiting and caring for premature infants at world fairs, expositions, and amusement parks from 1897 until the 1940s.
Explore the surprising history of Coney Island's incubator baby exhibits, where Dr. Martin Couney saved thousands of premature infants from the late 1800s to the 1940s. Dr.
Martin A Couney was not your average physician. Born in Germany sometime around 1870, Couney was a pediatrician and a leader in the field of neonatology who invented the modern baby incubator. Couney created and ran incubator-baby exhibits on the island from 1903 to the early 1940s, and though he died in relative obscurity, he was one of the great champions of this lifesaving...
At his exhibits, Couney demonstrated that isolating premature infants in an incubator ward could significantly decrease premature infant mortality and increased the use of incubators in the US. Couney filled the newfangled incubators with live children, which impressed a promoter named Samuel Schenkein, who then invited him to exhibit at Queen Victorias Diamond Jubilee in London the following year.
