Were you or a family member an incubator baby at Dr. Couney's exhibition at Coney Island's Dreamland, Luna Park or one of the three World's Fairs or Expositions from the St. Louis Exposition in 1903 to the New York World's Fair in 1939-1940?

I am trying to locate all those who as premature infants passed through his incubators and like myself (Luna Park 1921), owe their lives to the skill, time and attention of Dr. Couney and his staff of doctors, nurses - headed by Madam Louise Recht - and the "wet" nurses whose milk fed our growing bodies.

If you or a family member is/was a CouneyKid please contact me.  Dr. Couney and his staff deserve recognition for their early work with premature infants and incubators.

Thank you.
Harold Musselwhite

It is with great sadness that I have to add that Harold passed away on February 25, 2005.  He was always proud to be a CouneyKid and even spoke about it a few days before he died to his church's youth group.  He will be greatly missed.   For more information, contact his daughter at sjcoelho@yahoo.com.

The Man:

Dr. Martin Arthur Couney is said to have been born either on Dec. 31st, 1860 or  Dec. 30th 1870, either in Alsace or Breslau, Germany.   Dr. Couney studied medicine in Brelau, Berlin and Leipsig (Germany) where he received  his M.D. and later in Paris under Dr. Pierre C. Budin, noted pediatrician, who developed a method of saving the prematurely born.

Dr. Couney's first exhibition of babies is recorded as being at the Berlin Exposition of 1896 to show the Budin technique.  Other exhibitions were at Earl's Court in London in 1897.  In 1898, he paid his first visit to the United States and staged and exhibition at the Omaha Trans-Mississippi Exposition.  He returned to Paris for the exposition of  1900, but returned here for the Buffalo Exposition  the next year and remained to become a citizen. 

His permanent exhibitions were at Dreamland and Luna Park, both in Coney Island.  When Dreamland burned to ashes, it was only the quick work of all the members of his staff, Doctors, Nurses and others who saved the infants and transferred them to the Luna Park facility  with out a single loss of life. 

As early as the exhibition at Earl's Court, Drs. Couney and Shenkein  had already instituted the practice of using "wet" nurses to breast  feed the infants every two hours.  At night they were awakened by a  night watchman and two other physicians were retained to follow the  health of the infants three or four times a day. " 1

The incubators evolved from a crude beginning to the glass walled, heated and ventilated units in use at the time I was one of the "lodgers" in 1921.  My own birth weight was recorded at 16 oz., although the record shows even lighter infants surviving.

1  This portion of the story is excerpted from an extensive article based upon the research of  William A. Silverman, M.D., and published in Pediatrics, Vol.  64  Number 2 August 1979.

We, the too soon born

Much is written, televised and otherwise disseminated regarding the "marvels" of caring for and treating "premature infants."  Today in virtually all hospitals there are facilities for sustaining life in those ,"whose time to be born occurred too soon."   Babies up to 5 lbs today are considered premature but the "real" premature baby, like myself, weighs less than 2 lbs.   I was born in 1921 and was one of those little "bundles of life" so small and so delicate that my first days were as a "shoebox baby" on a bed of cotton in a warm oven.  Fed by an eyedropper, I might not have survived were it not for Dr. Couney and his "sideshow."  How "tiny" is tiny ?  Try 11 inches and a weight  of 26 ounces !


Reference here is not to modern babies who have the advantage of all the progress in the past 75+ years but those born in the latter part of the 19th Century and the early part of the twentieth.  They, for the most part, probably owe their lives to Dr. Martin A. Couney, his Chief nurse, Mme. Louise Recht and the staff of doctors and nurses who helped care for his charges in the incubators at Dreamland and Luna Park and later on the boardwalk near Steeplechase in Cone Island, NY.

A further tribute to the skill of Dr. Couney was his ability to transport his incubators and staff to many of the World's Fairs in North and South America.   He had his "exhibits"  at the St. Louis Fair in 1906, the Chicago World's Fair in 1933 and the New York World's Fairs in 1938/39 to mention a few.

Please Sign My Guest Book

View My Guestbook                            Sign My Guestbook

If you would like more information about Dr. Couney and his work, Dr. William
A. Silverman has been researching Dr. Couney and has a website at http://www.neonatology.org/classics/silverman/silverman1.html