r/SnapshotHistory

​

In the 1920s, you could visit Luna Park in Coney Island for 10 cents. But for an additional 25 cents, you could also see hundreds of premature babies being kept alive by incubators, a machine that the American medical community was slow to adopt.

The exhibition was run by a man named Martin Couney, a Polish immigrant whose own daughter had been born prematurely. Determined to help other parents in similar situations, Couney sought to popularize the machine that had helped his daughter survive. And even though he wasn't an actual medical professional, physicians from all over the country flocked to Coney Island to learn from the man known as the "Incubator Doctor."

Read the remarkable true story of Martin Couney, the sideshow savior.