Coney Island once hosted baby incubators in a sideshow
Before most hospitals had incubators to treat premature babies, one of the few place “preemies” could receive proper care was at Martin Couney’s incubator sideshow in Coney Island.
Couney is the subject of the new book “The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies” by Dawn Raffel. According to Atlas Obscura, Couney, who first displayed incubators at the Berlin Exposition in 1896, settled in the U.S. in 1903 “to run his babies-in-incubators sideshow.”
The entrance fees that Couney collected went toward his operating costs, including round-the-clock care and wet nurses, Atlas Obscura said. Couney defended the sideshow aspects of his Coney Island incubators by telling the New Yorker in 1939, “All my life I have been making propaganda for the proper care of preemies, who in other times were allowed to die.” Indeed, Couney, who may not have been a medical doctor, may have saved the lives of 6,500 babies, Atlas Obscura reported.
Coney Island
View MoreIn just a little over an hour, you can be transported from the glitz and glamor of Manhattan to the old-school amusement of Brooklyn's storied Coney Island. The destination offers thrills, sun, surf and a unique brand of entertainment that will feel worlds away from the rest of the City.