Science at a Side Show
How 'The Incubator Doctor' used Coney Island amusements to save newborns
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This is a weekly newsletter from me, Dani Faith Leonard , a comedy writer, film producer, and performer. It’s an extension of the live comedy show ADULT SEX ED that I’ve hosted since 2018. The show is about plugging the holes in our education as adults, so I’ll be doing just that (if you want to know more about this newsletter, here’s a description on substack). Ready to get a little smarter? Okay, let’s go!
I spent a big part of my childhood in Coney Island (located in Brooklyn, NY), where my grandparents lived. I loved walking the boardwalk, especially in the desolated off-season. When I was around ten years old, I took in my first performance of the Coney Island side show. I was asked to come on stage and be electrocuted while holding a light that would light up when enough currents were running through me. For a ten-year-old, this was thrilling. I watched the fire-eaters, contortionists and people with strange appearances perform from the audience. Koko the Killer Clown scared the shit out of me.
The concept of showcasing unusual or unique individuals at side shows, or “freak shows” dates back to ancient times, but it gained prominence in the 19th century in Europe and the United States. Many people associate these shows with P.T. Barnum, a notable racist and all around terrible dude. Oh, did they leave that out of the Hugh Jackman movie? Barnum's American Museum was just one borough away in Downtown Manhattan. In the early 1900s, Coney Island housed the largest amusement park in the world.
If you are uncomfortable with the term “freak show,” that’s understandable. These shows have always faced criticism for exploiting individuals with physical differences and contributing to the stigmatization of people with disabilities. If you want to get really offended, in 1905, they also brought indigenous people to the shore to be on display. There were Eskimos, Somalis, and Filipinos who were fed a feast of dogs in front of the crowd. Given this history, how did the side show become a place of scientific development and provide a fascinating chapter in medical history?
In the early 1900s, if you were strolling the Coney Island Boardwalk you would most definitely hear the barkers (including a young Carey Grant!) shouting: “Don’t forget to see the babies!” Where do you see the babies? At the infantorium, of course!
In the early to mid 20th century, there was little hope for babies born prematurely. Enter Dr. Martin Couney, who was born in Germany as Michael Cohen, but is not Donald Trump’s former attorney. He brought the incubators from Europe to America and exhibited the tiny newborns in Coney Island and other amusement parks from 1903 to the early 1940s. Many of the infants in the exhibits came to Couney from local maternity wards that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, care for them. His own daughter was born prematurely and also put on display for the baby-peepers.
At the time, doctors kept premature births under wraps because the mortality rate was so high. As you could imagine, maternal health wasn’t so great either. While it seems totally bonkers to put your own child on display, Couney’s technology was far more advanced than any American hospital at the time.
We tend to forget about the discoveries that had dubious beginnings, in addition to the products discovered by accident. Viagra, for example, was originally developed by Pfizer scientists in the late 1980s as a medication to treat hypertension and angina. Famously, the medication didn’t actually help with the intended use but had a very helpful unintended use—boners! Long-lasting diamond cutters (but call a doctor after four hours, as per the commercial). Pfizer may have Christopher Columbused the blue pill, but few people remember the initial failure.
There are some reckonings that need to be had, especially when people were hurt in the process of a discovery. This past August, the family of Henrietta Lacks settled its lawsuit against Thermo Fisher Scientific, proving that the company had been “unjustly enriched” (a.k.a. they got rich) by the use of her cells. Henrietta Lacks was a Black woman who died of cervical cancer in 1951, but before she did, the doctor took a sample from her tumor without her knowledge or consent and created an immortal cell line, HeLa, which has been used for very valuable research. The use of her cells without consent reflected the deep-seated racism in medical research. The first birth control pill used Puerto Rican women as guinea pigs. The United States Public Health Service knowingly killed Black men with syphilis during the Tuskegee study.
So what to make of the legacy of Dr. Couney? He claimed to have a higher purpose—to convince the reluctant medical establishment to embrace that technology. He never took a cent from the parents. Still, the babies were featured next to acts like the Four Legged Woman and Lionel the Lion-Faced Man. Couney died in relative obscurity, but is credited as a pioneer in neonatal technology. According to a 2018 book, he lied about his birthplace, changed his name a couple of times, and may or may not have been a real MD. He loved a photo op, especially with one of his preemies, although he preferred a more serious expression compared to the insta model duck lips.
In the end, Couney saved over 6500 children and there are survivors to tell the tale. He also unwittingly fought against the eugenics movement, who believed that saving premature babies would pollute the gene pool. One Chicago doctor even made a film with the tagline, “Kill Defectives, Save the Nation.” Overall, it seems that the pay-per-view NICU did more good than harm.
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This was very informative, thank you!