How a fake doctor’s circus show saved thousands of tiny lives

‘The incubator doctor’ held a stall that displayed a genuine life and death struggle (Picture: New York Public Library)

In the first half of the twentieth century, thousands of tiny babies lived their first few weeks among the smell of hot dogs and the sound of carnival music as they desperately fought for their lives. 

Dismissed as ‘weaklings’ and given little chance of survival, many premature infants were simply left to die. 

But one man, Dr Martin Couney, had the technology, the know-how and the motivation to...