Topic - Martin Couney

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File-In this July 22, 2015 photo, Lucille Horn is shown at her home in Long Beach, N.Y. Horn was expected to die shortly after she was born in 1920, but her life spanned nearly a century after her parents put their faith in a sideshow doctor at Coney Island who put babies on display in incubators to fund his research to keep them alive. She died in New York at age 96 on Feb. 11, 2017. (AP Photo/Frank Eltman, File)

Infant who survived in 1920s sideshow incubator dies at 96

By FRANK ELTMAN - Associated Press

In this photo taken, Thursday, July 23, 2015, Beth Allen displays a photograph at her home in Hackensack, N.J., taken by her father after she was born premature in 1941. A century before reality TV, premature infants were put on display in primitive incubators. People paid 25 cents to see them at world's fairs, on the Atlantic City boardwalk, the sideshows at Coney Island and elsewhere. It was the only option for parents desperate to keep their babies alive, and Dr. Martin Couney did his best to oblige. From 1903 to 1943, Couney estimated, he kept alive 7,500 of the 8,500 children that passed through his incubator sideshows. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Former carnival sideshow ‘incubator babies’ praise ‘gutsy’ doctor who saved them

By Frank Eltman - Associated Press