The Strange Case of Dr. Couney

by Dawn Raffel

  The Couney Buffs Encounter the Mysterious M. Lion

  “colorful (and bizarre!) chapter in medical history”: William A. Silverman, “Incubator-Baby Side Shows,” Pediatrics 64, no. 2 (August 1979), p. 127.

  “whether neonatal medicine’s enormous increase”: William A. Silverman, Where’s the Evidence? Debates in Modern Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 4. The book is a compilation of Silverman’s previous essays over the decades.

  a credible-sounding reader named Felix Marx: William A. Silverman, “Postscript to Incubator-Baby Side Shows,” Pediatrics 66, no. 3 (September 1980), pp. 474–475 (letters).

  “The Greatest Novelty of the Age!”

  born in Kraków: Most of Samuel Schenkein’s paperwork cites Kraków. To travel from New York to London in 1897 did not require a passport. Interestingly, in his 1900 passport application (no. 20343), Schenkein stated his birthplace as Brooklyn. However, he also declared his profession as “merchant,” then crossed that out and wrote “retired”—which was most certainly not the case. This document was witnessed by M. A. Couney. Couney later declared himself “retired” in his 1904 passport application (no. 95148). I suspect “retired” was a way of avoiding questions and/or tariffs.

  More than one hundred thousand . . . Six thousand women: James Walter Smith, “Baby Incubators,” The Strand Magazine (London) 12 (July–December 1896), p. 776.

  had secured exclusive rights for London for this summer: See the letter signed by Schenkein and Coney, later in this chapter. A photo published in the London Times clearly shows the machines are licensed from German instrument maker Paul Altmann. The paper, in an untitled item, also mentions Altmann’s patent: The Times, July 15, 1897, p. 3. Next in the listings is the Royal Aquarium, which had not yet acquired its own preemies.

  Every day, with something like 3,600 people: “The Danger of Making a Public Show of Incubators for Babies,” The Lancet 1 (February 5, 1898), p. 390.

  The spiel might go like this: This is based on Couney’s later documented interactions with the crowds, and his incessant courting of physicians.

  “The employment of incubators as a means” . . . “The main feature of this new incubator”: “The Use of Incubators for Infants,” The Lancet 1 (May 29, 1897), pp. 1490–1491.

  the feeding . . . and the cleaning: Ibid. A similar description is found in “To Teach the Young Idea How to Shoot,” The Sketch: A Journal of Art and Actuality, August 24, 1897, p. 195. An accompanying photograph shows “Paul Altmann Patents” in large letters on the wall.

  awkward, wheeled brooder: This machine is described in Jeffrey P. Baker, The Machine in the Nursery: Incubator Technology and the Origins of Newborn Intensive Care (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), p. 71. Rotch partnered with a technical expert named John Pickering Putnam, but the thing was clunky and short-lived.

  the superior system that he, Alexandre Lion, had devised: Smith, “Baby Incubators,” pp. 770–776.

  “just big enough” . . . “like the bearded lady”: Ibid., pp. 770, 772.

  the only person not convinced was Dr. Pierre Budin: Pierre Budin, The Nursling, trans. William J. Maloney (London: Caxton, 1907), Lecture 1, p. 13.

  At Maternité, the rudimentary couveuse: “It is far better to put the little one in an incubator by its mother’s bedside,” Budin said. Baker, The Machine in the Nursery, p. 150.

  Breast, breast, breast: Ibid., pp. 49–55.

  he also used gavage: Budin, The Nursling, Lecture 2, p. 28.

  Alexandre Lion was strategic: In the 1990s, Drs. Lawrence Gartner and L. Joseph Butterfield enlisted two German physicians to help with reconnaissance missions. Leonore Ballowitz, M.D., discovered a sketch of a Kinderbrutanstalt published in the 1896 issue of Berliner Ilustrirte Zeitung, and other documentation supporting that the exhibit was the work of Lion. The second researcher, Julia Whitefield, M.D., Ph.D., who’d moved from Frankfurt to Arvada, Colorado, translated the “Official Exhibition News” from 1896. This document spoke of Rudolf Virchow’s approval, the Germans’ desire to make the exhibition permanent, and Lion’s declining the offer, while volunteering to donate the machines. (The document is cited in “Martin Couney’s Story Revisited,” letter to the editor, Pediatrics 100, no. 1 [July 1997], p. 159.) Both women also saw Lion’s Patentschrift. Correspondence belonging to Lawrence Gartner shows that for a time, the buffs speculated that Martin Couney might have been Lion’s assistant. Searching archives in the former East Berlin, Dr. Ballowitz learned that Lion did have an assistant—but that man’s name was Leotardi. In a final effort at extending the benefit of the doubt to Martin Couney, some of the buffs wondered if Lion and Couney were actually the same person. Subsequent discoveries, including Couney’s immigration papers and photographs of the two men, put that theory soundly to bed.

  His clients included Robert Koch: Lawrence M. Gartner and Carol B. Gartner, “The Care of Premature Infants: Historical Perspective,” in Neonatal Intensive Care: A History of Excellence, A Symposium Commemorating Child Health Day, NIH Publication No. 92-2786 (Bethesda, MD: National Institutes of Health, 1992), http://www.neonatology.org/classics/nic.nih1985.pdf. See also Baker, The Machine in the Nursery, p. 95.

  “Little children have ever been esteemed”: “Immature Infants in France,” The Lancet 1 (January 16, 1897), p. 196.

  “The Greatest Novelty of the Age!”: Unidentified newspaper clipping, 1897, provided to me by Dr. Lawrence Gartner. The name of the publication is missing, but the item appears to be a paid listing.

  “It works automatically”: “To Teach the Young Idea How to Shoot,” p. 195.

  Just get your own and say it was smaller: In his 1905 account of treating babies at the St. Louis World’s Fair, Dr. John Zahorsky notes an 1898 editorial in Pediatrics, reporting that Barnum & Bailey had a twenty-ounce baby (“Incubators in London,” Pediatrics 5 [April 1, 1898], pp. 298–299); Zahorsky speculated that this “data” came from an English newspaper. John Zahorsky, Baby Incubators: A Clinical Study of the Premature Infant, with Especial Reference to Incubator Institutions Conducted for Show Purposes (St. Louis: Courier of Medicine, 1905), p. 12. Barring a miracle, that weight seems impossibly low for that time.

  “Sirs, In the interests of the general public”: Samuel Schenkein and Martin Coney, “Infant Incubators,” letter to the editor, The Lancet 2 (September 18, 1897), p. 744. Although the top signature is Schenkein’s, it is my belief that the letter was written by “Coney.” I have found no other documents written by Mr. Schenkein, but I have found many letters composed by Martin Couney, and this one matches his style.

  While the “favourably noticed” exhibit: “The Danger of Making a Public Show of Incubators for Babies,” The Lancet 1 (February 5, 1898), pp. 390–391.

  Already he’d spent a night in jail: “A Story of Assault,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, September 12, 1893, p. 5.

  The March of Science and Industry

  “Individuals, groups, entire races of man fall into step”: Official Guide Book of the Fair, 1933 (Chicago: A Century of Progress, 1933), p. 11.

  “I loved Coney Island like a person”: Paul Brigandi, Coney Island memorabilia collector, interview with the author, June 15, 2015.

  The Arrival of the Eminent Dr. Martin Arthur Counéy

  The gangly man had a hatbox in his hands: Martin Couney related the story of the hatbox baby in A. J. Liebling, “Patron of the Preemies,” The New Yorker, June 3, 1939, p. 23. This anecdote and Couney’s Chicago show inspired the novel The Hatbox Baby by Carrie Brown (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books, 2000).

  The original White City . . . had set a new American standard: For the best depiction of the White City and its significance, see Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (New York: Crown, 2003).

  No “spirituous liquors” sold: James B. Hayes, History of the Trans-Mississippi and Intern
ational Exhibition of 1898 (St. Louis: Woodward & Tiernan, 1910), p. 51, http://trans-mississippi.unl.edu/texts/view/transmiss.book.haynes.1910.html.

  “To the spectator it would seem that some long forgotten magician”: The Omaha Bee, front-page story on the fair’s opening day (June 1, 1898), cited in the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition digital archive, University of Nebraska–Lincoln, http://trans-mississippi.unl.edu/.

  the “savages” . . . “The gay throngs”: John A. Wakefield, A History of the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition (May 1903), http://trans-mississippi.unl.edu/texts/view/transmiss.book.wakefield.1903.html.

  “WONDERFUL INVENTION” and “Visited by 207,000 People at Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee”: F. A. Rinehart photograph, F. A. Rinehart Collection, Omaha Public Library.

  Reporters ignored him: Press reports of the incubator station appear to be nonexistent. L. Joseph Butterfield, “The Incubator Doctor in Denver: A Medical Missing Link,” in The 1970 Denver Westerners Brand Book, ed. Jackson C. Thode (Denver: Denver Westerners, 1971), p. 350, writes that “a careful search of 12 heavy volumes of clippings about the Exposition has failed to reveal a single reference.”

  The infants on display might not have been as tiny: The babies and their care remain a bit of a mystery. In 1939, Couney told A. J. Liebling of The New Yorker that he’d brought them from Chicago—a feat that seems highly improbable, unless these little ones were not really so little. With neither Louise Recht nor Maye Segner on hand, it’s not clear who was nursing them. In “The Incubator Doctor in Denver,” p. 350, L. Joseph Butterfield mentioned correspondence with Dr. Warren Bosley of Grand Island, Nebraska; the latter reported that a woman who’d visited the Omaha exposition several times when she was eleven didn’t recall seeing any nurses, nor did she see the babies taken out of the machines.

  the naked French painting: Hayes, History of the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition of 1898, p. 207.

  The show he opened at 2 West Eighteenth Street: Cited in numerous newspaper articles, among them “The Lion Institute Opened,” New-York Tribune, October 26, 1897, p. 9; see also American Medico-Surgical Bulletin 11 (November 10, 1897), p. 1002. The articles say that Lion would leave the station in the hands of a New York physician. After that, mention of it in any popular or medical publications ends. Given that the Buffalo show in 1901 made a tremendous splash as a unique endeavor, I have concluded the Manhattan station was gone by then. Lion left so light a footprint in New York that the Couney buffs were not even aware he had ever set up shop.

  “Dr. Martin Couney says nursing mothers”: These ads appeared throughout October and November 1898 in the Omaha World-Herald and The Nebraska State Journal, including October 27 and 30 and November 4, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, and 23. The one specifically stating “a wide experience” appeared in the Omaha World-Herald, October 27, p. 8, and in The Omaha Daily Bee, October 30, part II, p. 13.

  Martin A. Coney was an American citizen: The index card on file at the National Archives (Certificate of Naturalization vol. C-2, p. 15, Jour. vol. 59, p. 503) is typewritten as “Coney.” Martin’s original signed document on file at the Nebraska State Historical Society (vol. C-2, p. 14, of the journal cited above) shows his signature with an accent aigu over the e.

  Nailing Jelly to the Wall: The Couney Buffs Gain a Follower

  “We write this letter to your readers”: “Martin Couney’s Story Revisited,” letter to the editor, Pediatrics 100, no. 1 (July 1997), pp. 159–160.

  His New York Times obituary: Jennifer Bayot, “William A. Silverman, 87, Dies; Leading Neonatologist of 1950’s,” The New York Times, January 2, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/02/nyregion/william-a-silverman-87-dies-leading-neonatologist-of-1950s.html.

  “The President Has Been Shot!”

  another Paris Universelle Exposition: Erik Mattie, World’s Fairs (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998), p. 101.

  M. Lion printed copious souvenir postcards: I had no trouble finding one on eBay in 2015.

  Martin Coney signed a business agreement with Samuel Schenkein: The date and details of their agreement emerged in the company’s subsequent bankruptcy proceedings; see In re Schenkein et al. (District Court, Western District New York, February 7, 1902), No. 763, The Federal Reporter, vol. 113, pp. 421–429. Newspapers at the time refer to McConnell as Emmett H., while legal documents refer to Emmett W.

  Cue-BAY-tah: The perspicacious William Silverman picked up on the name Qbata as an “echo-nym.” William A. Silverman, “Incubator-Baby Side Shows,” Pediatrics 64, no. 2 (August 1979), p. 127.

  The Kny-Scheerer company in New York manufactured: T. E. Cone, History of the Care and Feeding of the Premature Infant (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985), p. 55.

  Chicago Lying-in: Joseph Bolivar DeLee, “Chicago Lying-in Hospital and Dispensary,” Northwestern Medical School Yearbook, 1903, clipping from the collection of Dr. Lawrence Gartner.

  Low Maternity in Brooklyn: Frances H. Stuart, “De Lion Incubator at Low Maternity Hospital,” Brooklyn Medical Journal 15 (1901), pp. 346–349.

  Sloane Maternity: James D. Voorhees, “The Care of Premature Babies in Incubators,” Archives of Pediatrics 17 (1900), pp. 331–346, discusses the care of preemies at Sloane, where he was a resident physician. He describes the Lion model as the best available but notes that the hospital was so strapped for resources that sometimes three babies were placed in one machine, and sometimes babies were removed early because of demand. In addition to the Lion machines, the hospital used cheap modifications of the Tarnier or Auvard couveuse.

  Copycat contraptions: Jeffrey P. Baker, “The Incubator Controversy: Pediatricians and the Origins of Premature Infant Technology in the United States, 1890 to 1910,” Pediatrics 87, no. 5 (May 1991), pp. 655–656; for one example of a homemade warming crib, see John Bartlett, “The Warming-Crib,” The Chicago Medical Journal and Examiner 54 (May 1887), pp. 449–454.

  First on the agenda: In re Schenkein et al., pp. 421–429.

  Sam found an investor, Emmett W. McConnell: Ibid.

  “Dr. Coney”: Martin Couney is called Dr. Coney in every newspaper and magazine article I could find about this show, and there were many.

  Miss Annabelle Maye Segner: “Wife of Nationally Known Physician Worked with Mate for Many Years,” obituary, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, February 23, 1936.

  the favorite child: Annabelle Maye Segner’s widowed mother lived with the couple from the time of their marriage until her death; she left almost all of her money to Maye.

  she gave it a bath in “synized” water and mustard: “Tiny Mites of Humanity Receive Most Assiduous Care from Nurses and Physicians,” Buffalo Express, June 12, 1901.

  Every two hours, those who could suckle were carried upstairs: “Baby Incubators at the Pan-American Exposition,” Scientific American 85, no. 5 (August 3, 1901), p. 68.

  free season passes from Sam, signed “Dr. Schenkein”: I have seen microfiche of the one that was given to Dr. Matthew D. Mann. Buffalo History Museum Research Library, M82-5, Dr. Matthew D. Mann Scrapbooks.

  Little Willie . . . the twin girls . . . The baby boy, A.S.: “Tiny Mites of Humanity Receive Most Assiduous Care from Nurses and Physicians.”

  triplets arrived: “Marked the Triplets for Identification: And Then They Were Placed in an Incubator—Watched by Mother,” Saginaw Evening News (Michigan; dateline Buffalo), July 22, 1901.

  Yet his eyes, in the moment when the shutter was released: Photograph (figure 6) in William A. Silverman, “Incubator-Baby Side Shows,” Pediatrics 64, no. 2 (August 1979), p. 133.

  The Buffalo News declared “it”: The Buffalo News, July 20, 1901, as cited at http://library.buffalo.edu/pan-am/exposition/health/medical/incubators.html.

  Pediatrics judged the exhibit instructive: “Exhibit of Infant Incubators at the Pan-American Exposition,” Pediatrics 12 (1901), pp. 414–419.

 
Scientific American repeated the 85 percent survival rate: “Baby Incubators at the Pan-American Exposition,” p. 68.

  waxing ecstatic in the pages of Cosmopolitan: Arthur Brisbane, “The Incubator Baby and Niagara Falls,” Cosmopolitan 31 (September 1901), pp. 509–516.

  “The question naturally presents itself”: “Some Medical Aspects of the Pan American Exposition: Infant Incubators,” Buffalo Medical Journal 57, no. 1 (August 1901; reprinted from Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, July 18, 1901), p. 56.

  he was someone for whom the term “pillar of society”: The depiction of Dr. Mann, and description of his club activities, complimentary season passes, and presence on the opening day of the fair, are drawn from the Dr. Matthew D. Mann Scrapbooks, Buffalo History Museum Research Library, M82-5.

  Colleagues of his apparently were sending their patients: Local doctors were sending their patients to the concession, and the well-connected Dr. Mann would almost certainly have been acquainted with some of them. The Buffalo Medical Journal 57, no. 1 (August 1901), noted one arrival from a prominent family. Whether Dr. Mann sent any of his own patients is unknown.

  A former architecture student from Irontown, Ohio: The partnership of Thompson and Dundy is chronicled in Oliver Pilat and Jo Ranson, Sodom by the Sea: An Affectionate History of Coney Island (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1941), pp. 142–143. I have seen other versions of the details of this story (as often happens with Coney Island lore), but all agree they were rivals in Omaha and became partners in Buffalo in 1901. Pilat and Ranson’s version is the most common.

  “The visitor witnesses the punishment meted out to scandal-mongers”: Official Catalogue and Guide Book to the Pan-American Exhibition, May 1–November 1, 1901 (Buffalo: Charles Ahrhart, 1901), p. 45.

  one Edward M. Bayliss of St. Louis: The showman’s biography and previous extravaganzas are presented in World’s Fair Bulletin, Published in the Interest of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition (St. Louis: World’s Fair Publishing Company, March 1902), p. 36.