The Strange Case of Dr. Couney
How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies
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4.3 • 18 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“A mosaic mystery told in vignettes, cliffhangers, curious asides, and some surreal plot twists as Raffel investigates the secrets of the man who changed infant care in America.”—NPR, 2018's Great Reads
What kind of doctor puts his patients on display? This is the spellbinding tale of a mysterious Coney Island doctor who revolutionized neonatal care more than one hundred years ago and saved some seven thousand babies. Dr. Martin Couney's story is a kaleidoscopic ride through the intersection of ebullient entrepreneurship, enlightened pediatric care, and the wild culture of world's fairs at the beginning of the American Century.
As Dawn Raffel recounts, Dr. Couney used incubators and careful nursing to keep previously doomed infants alive, while displaying these babies alongside sword swallowers, bearded ladies, and burlesque shows at Coney Island, Atlantic City, and venues across the nation. How this turn-of-the-twentieth-century émigré became the savior to families with premature infants—known then as “weaklings”—as he ignored the scorn of the medical establishment and fought the rising popularity of eugenics is one of the most astounding stories of modern medicine. Dr. Couney, for all his entrepreneurial gusto, is a surprisingly appealing character, someone who genuinely cared for the well-being of his tiny patients. But he had something to hide...
Drawing on historical documents, original reportage, and interviews with surviving patients, Dawn Raffel tells the marvelously eccentric story of Couney's mysterious carnival career, his larger-than-life personality, and his unprecedented success as the savior of the fragile wonders that are tiny, tiny babies.
A New York Times Book Review New & Noteworthy Title
A Real Simple Best Book of 2018
Christopher Award-winner
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Raffel (In the Year of Long Division) sheds a welcome light on a medical outlier whose landmark treatment of premature babies was largely dismissed because of the carnival setting in which he showcased their care. Pulling together documents, photos, and interviews, including some with now-elderly preemies who were among Couney's incubator babies, Raffel traces the extraordinary life of Michael Cohn, born in 1869 in Krotoszyn, Poland, as he reinvents himself in America as Dr. Martin Couney, proud showman of tiny incubator babies some as small as two pounds in specialized facilities he constructed at world's fairs and summer amusement parks across the country. What the medical world ignored save Chicago pediatrician and father of neonatology Julius Hess, who deeply admired Couney and was profoundly influenced by his work was the meticulous attention those fragile babies were given: frequent feedings by round-the-clock wet-nurses or with a "spoon-to-the-nose" maneuver, and even oxygen. The exhibits, Raffel finds, were "the forerunners of the modern premature nursery" eventually popularized by Hess and other pediatricians. It's estimated Couney saved between 6,500 and 7,000 preemies brought to him by their parents, an extraordinary accomplishment at a time when few doctors were even attempting it. With colorful descriptions of the carnival world and the medical marvels of early neonatalogy, Raffel makes a fascinating case for this unusual pioneer's rightful place in medical history.
