Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands

Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine (Kindle Single)

How did thousands of premature infants come to be exhibited at Americaâ€™s most popular amusement park?

In Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine, Claire Prentice uncovers the incredible true story of Martin Couney, the â€œincubator doctor.â€

Couney ran his incubator facility for premature babies at Coney Island from 1903 to 1943 and set up similar exhibits at Worldâ€™s Fairs and amusement parks across America, and in London, Paris, Mexico and Brazil.

Couneyâ€™s techniques were advanced for the time and his facility was expensive to run. But he didnâ€™t charge the parents of the preemies a penny; instead the public paid to see them. He claimed to have a survival rate of 85 percent. By contrast, most mainstream doctors in the early part of the 20th century regarded premature babies as â€œweaklingsâ€ and did little or nothing to save them.

Prentice's meticulous research unravels the mystery of Couneyâ€™s origins, and reveals that the â€œincubator doctorâ€ was not all that he seemed. She brings one of the most extraordinary stories in American medicine to life through interviews with Couneyâ€™s former â€œincubator babies.â€

Claire Prentice is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Lost Tribe of Coney Island: Headhunters, Luna Park, and the Man Who Pulled Off the Spectacle of the Century. She has contributed to the BBC, the Washington Post, the Times of London, The Guardian, the Smithsonian magazine, the Huffington Post, NPR, Marie Claire, and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Country USA
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2016-05-17
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2016-05-17
Format	Kindle eBook

Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine (Kindle Single)

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