The Strange Case Of Dr. Couney: How A Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands Of American Babies

"At first, this tale of a midway marvel reads like true crime; certainly Dr. Couney, who ran baby-incubator sideshows, is a mysterious figure. But author Dawn Raffel quickly becomes less interested in who he was than in what he did. Couney’s incubator pavilions found homes on big-city boardwalks, wedged amid pseudo-scientific tourist exhibitions. But the babies in Couney’s incubators had a survival rate so much higher than hospitals that the book ends up exploring larger questions about social sea changes, the power of public perception and what it means to meet those incubator babies. A compelling historical footnote, compassionately told."