BEGINNINGS: Alexandre Lion’s 1889 design for a premature-baby incubator included a thermostat-regulated heater and forced ventilation system. Physician-cum-showman Martin Couney (right) helped publicize the incubator technologies designed by Lion and others for premature infant care. However, some of his shows in amusement parks at Coney Island and elsewhere caused him to be associated by many with exploitative “freak shows”—an image he spent most of his life trying to shake. L. FISCHER, INFANT-FEEDING IN ITS RELATION TO HEALTH AND DISEASE, F. A. DAVIS COMPANY, 1901; New York World’s Fair, 1939-1940, New York, N.Y.
In the 1880s, premature birth was mostly a mother’s issue. Some hospitals used simple technology, inspired by chicken incubators and heated by hot water bottles, to keep premature babies warm. And studies conducted by the makeshift incubators’ creator, Stéphane Tarnier, showed that such care reduced infant mortality. Still, most hospitals focused “just as much on breastfeeding and maternal care to save the baby,” says Jeffrey Baker, a medical historian at Duke University.
French physician Alexandre Lion took a different approach. In 1889, he patented an incubator in which temperature was regulated by a thermostat—“a tricky technology” back then, says Baker—and ventilation was provided by an electric fan. Rather than extra support, Lion’s incubator was “almost an artificial mother.”
But such newfangled technology wasn’t cheap. And ...
