12/01/2025
Martin Couney was never a doctor. He never held a license. He never set foot in a medical school. And yet, he saved over 7,000 lives.
In the early 20th century, premature infants were widely considered "weak" or "errors of nature"—too frail to deserve a future.
At a time when eugenicists argued, "let them die," Couney offered a defiant response: “Let’s try to save them.”
He saw hope where the medical establishment saw only a lost cause. Lacking the support of major hospitals and official medicine, Couney did the unthinkable to fund his mission: he turned it into a spectacle.
The protagonist of this story, the "incubator doctor," was Martin Couney. Little is definitively known about him, though he was likely born in Germany around 1870.
It remains unclear where he studied—he claimed to have trained with an apprentice of the French obstetrician Stéphan Tarnier, who invented the first incubator—and there is no verified proof he was a medical doctor, despite what he declared and what was printed in his New York Times obituary.
Couney's revolutionary idea took shape after being inspired by the work of Tarnier, who had modeled the first infant incubator on a device used to hatch chicken eggs—a poultry brooder.
Couney took this concept and showcased it to the public at the Berlin World's Exposition in 1896.
He exhibited a new incubator model and, crucially, included premature babies inside them. This decision added a dramatic, realistic touch to the scientific demonstration, creating an exhibit called "Kinderbrutanstalt" ("Children's Hatchery").
This "Children's Hatchery" immediately became a massive popular attraction. Though conceived as a scientific demonstration, it quickly morphed into a highly profitable spectacle.
Couney was soon invited to present his exhibit, complete with nurses, midwives, and doctors, at fairs and amusement parks worldwide. Immediately after Berlin, he went to London, where his approach was surprisingly praised in an article by the prestigious medical journal, The Lancet.
Couney's spectacle eventually found a permanent home at the Coney Island Sideshow in New York. It was a bizarre, almost unbelievable sight: a medical exhibit presented as a sideshow.
He set up a pavilion at the heart of the world’s most famous amusement park—Coney Island. Right next to the Ferris wheels and the cotton candy vendors, he showcased premature babies housed inside revolutionary incubators.
Why this unorthodox approach? It was the only way to pay for the care.
While esteemed hospitals rejected the infants and official medicine ignored his methods, Couney provided meticulous care, warmth, and dedication.
He financed this lifesaving work solely through the admission tickets purchased by curious visitors. The exhibit was operational from 1903 to 1943.
Couney used state-of-the-art incubators imported from France, where neonatal care was far more advanced than in the US.
These glass and steel machines used a boiler to heat water that circulated through tubes beneath the baby's bedding, while filtered air was constantly brought in from outside.
Couney was masterful at manipulating public emotion. The large sign outside read, "All the World Loves Babies," and the tiny infants, often dressed in doll clothes that seemed overly large to emphasize their smallness, stirred sympathy.
While many exhibits of the era exploited people for profit, Couney’s sideshow fundamentally allowed the exposed babies to survive, as most would have died without this specialized care.
Babies generally came from poor families. The 25-cent entrance fee funded everything—costing about $15 per baby per day (about $405 today), a cost prohibitive for most families. For many parents, Couney's spectacle was the only chance to save their premature child.
His career was controversial; he was called an impostor and a charlatan, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children accused him of exploitation. Yet, Couney also championed progressive ideas like the critical importance of breast milk.
Over time, Couney's success began to draw the attention of leading US pediatricians. Some even personally brought premature babies to be placed in his incubators.
Julius Hess, considered the father of American neonatology, became a professional collaborator and friend. Developmental psychologist Arnold Gesell visited in 1939 to film the infants.
Couney died on March 2, 1950, just a few years after the first hospital-based premature baby units began appearing in US hospitals—nearly four decades after his Coney Island debut paved the way.
Martin Couney never had a title. But he had vision. He had courage. And above all, he had compassion for those the world had decided to forget.
>We Are Human Angels<
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Awakening the Human Spirit
We are the authors of 'We Are Human Angels,' the book that has spread a new vision of the human experience and has been spontaneously translated into 14 languages by readers.
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