Martin Couney: Saved over 6500 Premature Babies at Coney Island Shows

Outside the Box Thinker/Entrepreneur “The Incubator Doctor”

Taking his idea from chicken farmers of the time, Couney became instrumental in saving the lives of premature babies born during the early 1900s. Typically the babies were thought to be genetic abnormalities and left to die, due to the Eugenics movement popular at the time. Not having any funding for his incubators, Couney set up a series of incubators at fairs and circuses to raise money to fund the incubators and the nurses that attended the infants. Through this action, he saved the lives of over 6500 children and brought awareness to the medical community that incubators were not just for farm animals like chickens. He tried to donate incubators to local hospitals who usually rejected them due to the stigma of eugenics. Eventually hospitals began using incubators with great success due to his actions and he is remembered as a pioneer of neonatological technology. His ideas were rejected but he persisted: his valor saved lives. Valor is in you. Set it free.