Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies
    Unavailable
    The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies
    Unavailable
    The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies
    Audiobook6 hours

    The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies

    Written by Dawn Raffel

    Narrated by Erin Bennett

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    The extraordinary tale of how a mysterious immigrant "doctor" became the revolutionary innovator in saving premature babies by placing them in incubators in World's Fair side shows and on Coney Island and Atlantic City.

    Was Martin Couney a charlatan or a good doctor?

    As Dawn Raffel artfully recounts, Dr. Couney figured out he could use incubators and careful nursing to keep previously doomed infants alive, and at the same time make good money displaying these babies alongside sword swallowers, bearded ladies, and burlesque shows. How this turn-of-the-twentieth-century émigré became the savior to families with premature infants, known then as "weaklings"—while ignoring the scorn of the medical establishment—is one of the most astounding stories of modern medicine. And as listeners will find, Dr. Couney, for all his opportunistic entrepreneurial gusto, is a surprisingly appealing character, someone who genuinely cared for the well-being of his tiny patients. But he was not, after all, a doctor.

    Drawing on newly discovered documents, obscure contemporary reports, and interviews with some of the now elderly surviving infants, acclaimed journalist and magazine editor 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 tiny babies.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 31, 2018
    ISBN9781524749491
    Unavailable
    The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies

    Related to The Strange Case of Dr. Couney

    Related audiobooks

    Medical For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      How Newborn Incubators Work

      Oct 27, 2022

      How Newborn Incubators Work
      3 min read

    • Article

      Leaving Society

      Jul 27, 2020

      Leaving Society
      5 min read

    • Article

      Interview / Simon Schama

      Jun 8, 2023

      Interview / Simon Schama
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Quarantine Next Door

      Aug 2, 2014

      The Quarantine Next Door
      4 min read

    • Article

      History Cookbook

      Oct 26, 2023

      History Cookbook
      3 min read

    • Article

      An Act Of Love

      Jan 18, 2024

      An Act Of Love
      8 min read

    • Article

      TV & RADIO

      May 4, 2021

      TV & RADIO
      3 min read

    • Article

      Kinderbrutanstalt

      Mar 8, 2022

      Kinderbrutanstalt
      2 min read

    • Article

      Quack or cure?

      Sep 6, 2022

      Quack or cure?
      1 min read

    • Article

      Pubs, Plants And Reporting

      Jan 19, 2023

      Historians usually have hindsight and archive material to suit their narrative. Writing in real time about Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Owen Matthews (half Russian; Christ Church, Oxford; former Newsweek Moscow bureau chief) has had neither. Fluent,

      2 min read

    • Article

      Change For The Better

      Apr 23, 2023

      Change For The Better
      7 min read

    • Article

      A Leap Into The Unknown

      Jan 25, 2023

      A Leap Into The Unknown
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Wonders

      Sep 12, 2019

      The Wonders
      2 min read

    • Article

      Peculiar Postcards

      Sep 9, 2021

      Peculiar Postcards
      2 min read

    • Article

      Freaky Fascinations

      Feb 27, 2020

      Freaky Fascinations
      10 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Apr 15, 2021

      Letters
      3 min read

    • Article

      Plagues And People

      Oct 6, 2021

      Plagues And People
      3 min read

    • Article

      More From Us

      Sep 30, 2021

      More From Us
      1 min read

    • Article

      Editorial

      Apr 18, 2024

      While perhaps not as determinedly – some might say wilfully – sceptical of mainstream science (and most other modes of human enquiry) as was Charles Fort, FT readers would probably err on the side of caution when confronted with supposedly definitive

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Medieval Guide To Childbirth

      Jan 21, 2021

      The Medieval Guide To Childbirth
      7 min read

    • Article

      Big Lessons From Smallpox

      Jun 21, 2021

      Big Lessons From Smallpox
      5 min read

    • Article

      Editor’s Letter

      Sep 1, 2021

      “THE CONFISCATED BIRDS were taken to RSPCA centres... where [they] were rehabilitated before being released. The cross-bred and domestic birds were successfully rehomed.” (News, page 2.) Blimey, has common sense broken out in the RSPCA? A few years a

      1 min read

    • Article

      Encounters

      Sep 2, 2021

      Encounters
      6 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      Aug 15, 2019

      Welcome
      1 min read

    Reviews for The Strange Case of Dr. Couney

    3.5/5

    19 ratings5 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      The story itself is quite interesting - an early innovator in the incubation of infants who surprisingly was not a licensed physician. Likely Dr. Couney's success was due both to his ability to afford innovative infant care and also to his skills as a showman. While some might question his decision to display infants at World Fairs, few can argue with the fact that he afforded care without charge.Nonetheless, the book dragged at times. I suspect it was a combination of lack of primary sources and that there was simply not much drama in the story itself. An interesting but hardly compelling read.
    • 4/5
      What an unbelievable story. Babies in incubators as a side show at various world fairs, as well as Coney Island and Atlantic City. A time when infants born too soon and a medical establishment that had no way to keep them alive.Enter, this amazing man from Europe, a showman but a deeply caring man, a man who took the smallest of preemies and placed them in incubators. Stressing cleanliness, breast milk, holding and loving, and in the process saved 7000 children. Not a linear story because the book contains historical events taking place during this time period. The eugenics program, doctors who would rather watch these little ones die, than take the chance that they may grow up with defects. Hitler, of course, carried eugenics out of devastating and horrific extremes. The struggles of this wonderful man as he did everything he could to make sure as many as possible of these little ones survived. Description of the White City and the Century of Progress in Chicago. Just little historical facts here and there, which I enjoyed. The Depression that effected so many. Other doctors that tried unsuccessfully to duplicate his successes, using incubators where too much oxygen was pumped in causing blindness. This is how Stevie Wonder lost his sight.The author tracks down some of these remaining children, although few are still living. Relatives of these babies to hear the stories they told if they could be found. I enjoyed this book very much, learning how neonatal care came into bring. I listened to this and again a case of the book containing quite a few pictures and no PDF file with the audible. The narrator was Erin Bennet and she did z very nice job.
    • 3/5
      After immigrating to the States, Martin Couney set up an amusement show where he displayed premature babies in incubators. In a time where premature babies often died, Couney was able to keep them alive, without charging the parents a dime for his services. Decades after his death, researchers discovered that, despite his claims, Martin Couney was not a doctor, and had no training in neonatal care. I thought Couney was a very interesting character. His story was remarkable and extraordinary. I could have done without reading about the author's search to uncover info about Couney, it took away from the fluidity of the book and didn't really add anything to the story. Overall, a decent book, but not one I would reread.
    • 4/5
      I came across mention of this book in Bookpage, a publication that I pick up at the library. Whoever wrote about it there made it sound intriguing so I put it on my TBR list. Given our modern day success stories with preemies and low-birthweight babies and those who have trouble thriving, it might be hard to remember that there was a time when this wasn't known. There were a few people, Martin Couney among them, who saw the value of trying to save infants who most doctors of the time wrote off. It seems he had a pretty good success rate with the ones brought to him who survived the first 2-3 days. I'm not sure why doctors seemed so little inclined to adopt or at least adapt his methods. But, as they say, hindsight is 20-20. The author became interested in this story after finding her late father's "autobiography" that he wrote at age 16 which mentioned him attending the "Century of Progress" in 1933 in Chicago. In researching that, she found mention of the attraction featuring live babies in incubators. The book jumps between Couney's history and others's attempts (including the authors) to find the history. That can be a little confusing at times. The story was told in an engaging way and for the most part, it was a fast read. There are still some unanswered questions--and who knows if those will ever be answered.
    • 4/5
      The first chapter, about Couney, begins for no obvious reason in 1934, when Couney is sixty-four. That's not when the baby in the Prologue arrived. Then the story drops back to Michael Cohn (Martin A. Couney's original name) in Europe, his emigration to the United States, and information about earlier attempts at creating incubators. Then it proceeds mostly in order, interrupted by incidents about Couney buffs, including eventually, Dawn Raffell. I don't think these are well-handled; I often found them irritating, breaking up the Couney story just as I was getting interested. There often seemed no particular reason to switch narrative lines at any particular point. I finally looked up the reviews on Amazon, just to give myself some idea of whether it was worth continuing, because I was very tempted to quit. The story improved after page 60, but I still felt it could all have been handled better.Raffell has also included a lot of tidbits of information about the times, including the eugenics movement, which favored allowing such children to die. The refusal of hospitals to adopt Couney's methods to save preemies, or weaklings, serve as a lesson that doctors are fallible. Occasionally, I wonder why such-and-such was included, but mostly they helped to recreate the times in which Couney lived.I thought it could have been better done.