Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: From the turn of the century to the nineteen forties,
Speaker 1: summer in New York meant one thing. It was time
Speaker 1: for a trip to Coney Island. You might rub shoulders
Speaker 1: with well heeled Upper East Siders and working class Brooklyn
Speaker 1: nights as you wander through the park searching for summer fun.
Speaker 1: You could swim in the bay, or brave the wooden
Speaker 1: roller coasters, or you could wander the boardwalk and there
Speaker 1: Barker's called from direction, urging you to come into their tent.
Speaker 1: Did you want to see a four legged woman? Or
Speaker 1: how about a boy with a face like a dog.
Speaker 1: But nestled among the strong men and sword swallowers was
Speaker 1: a completely different kind of attraction, a small awning filled
Speaker 1: with even smaller glass boxes, and inside the tiniest babies
Speaker 1: you had ever seen. Because from nineteen o three to
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, the best place to care for your
Speaker 1: premature baby was doctor Martin Cooney's child hatchery on the
Speaker 1: Coney Island boardwalk. At the turn of the century, the
Speaker 1: odds for a baby born early weren't great. Hospitals didn't
Speaker 1: have the advanced medical technology that helps premature infants both
Speaker 1: survive and thrive. Even if they did, however, many wouldn't
Speaker 1: have used it. Unfortunately. The attitude at the time was
Speaker 1: that premature babies were weak and not meant to live.
Speaker 1: If they survived their early birth, great, but if they didn't,
Speaker 1: then it just wasn't meant to be. Either way, most
Speaker 1: hospitals wouldn't waste valuable time and resources on them. While
Speaker 1: this a rule take on survival of the fittest was
Speaker 1: common in the medical field, it wasn't the rule. In
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies, several doctors had been inspired by the
Speaker 1: incubators used to hatch chickens and were trying to perfect
Speaker 1: a version for human babies. By eighteen ninety six, French
Speaker 1: doctor Pierre costamp Boudin had invented an incubator that he
Speaker 1: called a child hatchery. The device would keep a premature
Speaker 1: infant warm and safe from infection long enough to survive.
Speaker 1: He sent his assistant, a young trainee named Martin Cooney,
Speaker 1: to exhibit his child hatchery at the eighteen ninety six
Speaker 1: Great Industrial Exposition in Berlin. For his demonstration in Berlin,
Speaker 1: Cooney filled the incubators with live children. It was an
Speaker 1: immediate hit. Cooney was invited to exhibitions across Europe and America,
Speaker 1: and even displayed the incubators at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.
Speaker 1: Soon Cooney had left his mentor behind, touring the United
Speaker 1: States with his own improved incubators. As he traveled, he
Speaker 1: refined his standard care, employing specially trained nurses and developing
Speaker 1: round the clock feeding schedules. After bouncing between expos and
Speaker 1: world's Fairs for several years, he decided to open a
Speaker 1: permanent home for his incubators in nineteen oh three on
Speaker 1: Coney Island, and so there on the boardwalk, passers by
Speaker 1: could pay a quarter to step inside and see the
Speaker 1: tiny infants. Some were barely more than two or three
Speaker 1: pounds in size. To demonstrate that, one nurse would perform
Speaker 1: a trick of slipping her wedding ring around a baby's
Speaker 1: thin wrist. From the start, there was backlash. Critics felt
Speaker 1: that displaying the premies like sideshow freaks was exploitative. Others
Speaker 1: worried their proximity to boardwalk trash and unwonted live animals
Speaker 1: would invite disease and infection. Still, others took the hospital
Speaker 1: stance that these babies shouldn't have medical intervention at all.
Speaker 1: And yet to the families whose children were on display,
Speaker 1: Cooney wasn't so much a sideshow barker as a saint.
Speaker 1: The Coney Island Incubator Show was most families only chance
Speaker 1: to save their infants. Expert care was provided free of charge,
Speaker 1: covered by every twenty five cent entry fee that people
Speaker 1: paid to see them. Anyone could have their premature baby
Speaker 1: cared for, regardless of race or class. Doctor Cooney's own daughter,
Speaker 1: born premature, spent time in the incubator tent. For forty years,
Speaker 1: Cooni's Coney Island attraction cared for thousands of premature babies.
Speaker 1: When he was finally ready to retire, it seemed like
Speaker 1: the world had finally caught up to his beliefs. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, the same year Cooni's Incubators closed their doors,
Speaker 1: Cornell Hospital in Manhattan opened the country's first dedicated premature infant.
Speaker 1: Ward Cooney was a controversial figure, at times, a showman
Speaker 1: and a savior. He was largely dismissed by the medical
Speaker 1: community as an opportunist, and when he died in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty it was in relative obscurity. It certainly didn't help
Speaker 1: his standing with his critics when it was later discovered
Speaker 1: that he had likely lied about his background. That story
Speaker 1: about apprenticing under doctor Budan in Paris, Well, it may
Speaker 1: have never happened, and Cooney himself might not have actually
Speaker 1: been a medical doctor. And still that probably didn't make
Speaker 1: a difference to the over six five hundred babies that
Speaker 1: doctor Cooney saved. So maybe for all those years nestled
Speaker 1: between the swords, swallowers and tattooed ladies, it was doctor
Speaker 1: Cooney's tent that was truly the greatest show on Earth.
Speaker 1: Here's a lesson that you don't want to learn firsthand.
Speaker 1: Rabies totally bites. The virus that sealed Old Yeller's fate
Speaker 1: is awful, and once symptoms set in, it's almost guaranteed
Speaker 1: to kill you. It attacks the brain and spinal cord,
Speaker 1: causing burning sensations, intense headaches, and partial paralysis. As the
Speaker 1: disease progresses, it inflicts an arsenal of horrific psychological effects,
Speaker 1: starting with anxiety and restlessness, progressing to full on hydrophobia.
Speaker 1: That's an extreme fear of water, made worse by intense
Speaker 1: muscle spasms that make swallowing water nearly impossible. The fear,
Speaker 1: the pain, and the confusion get worse until you either
Speaker 1: choke to death on your own saliva or your heart stops.
Speaker 1: But here's the good news. The modern rabies vaccine is
Speaker 1: pretty bulletproof. It will save your life assuming you get
Speaker 1: the shot soon after contracting the virus. But before it
Speaker 1: was developed, there was virtually no reliable treatment for those
Speaker 1: unlucky enough to contract it. Rabies was a nightmarish prospect
Speaker 1: that usually meant certain death. This is best illustrated by
Speaker 1: a story from eighteen fifty two, thirty three years before
Speaker 1: there was a rabies vaccine. The life of a prairie
Speaker 1: man from Illinois was turned upside down one morning when
Speaker 1: his nine year old son, Robert, was attacked by a
Speaker 1: stray dog. They managed to drive the animal off, but
Speaker 1: not before the boy was bitten now dread griped this
Speaker 1: man as he examined the way wound. The dog had
Speaker 1: been strangely aggressive and frothing at the mouth, both clear
Speaker 1: signs of rabies, which meant that Robert had most likely
Speaker 1: contracted the disease. This man was well aware of the
Speaker 1: seriousness of the situation, having grown up on the frontier
Speaker 1: where rabies carrying animals like skunks and bats were common.
Speaker 1: At this point, there were only three real options. Option
Speaker 1: one except the boy's fate and prepared to put him
Speaker 1: out of his misery should the symptoms arise. Option two
Speaker 1: cauterized the wound with a piece of hot metal and
Speaker 1: hope that that killed the virus before it spread. This
Speaker 1: would obviously be painful and probably ineffective, which left option three.
Speaker 1: Get Robert to a medical practitioner in possession of a madstone. Now.
Speaker 1: While they've fallen out of use today, a madstone was
Speaker 1: long thought to be the only antidote against rabies. Beyond that,
Speaker 1: the definition can be a bit flexible. Madstones varied in size, shape,
Speaker 1: and origin. Most often, though, they were small clumps of
Speaker 1: hair and other materials taken from the stomachs or bladders
Speaker 1: of wild animals like deer, in other words, hair balls. Now.
Speaker 1: Robert's father was an educated man. He worked as a
Speaker 1: lawyer in fact, and he didn't put much stock in
Speaker 1: folklore remedies, But with no other antidotes available, he was
Speaker 1: desperate enough to try anything. After asking around, he learned
Speaker 1: about a doctor one state over who actually owned a madstone.
Speaker 1: A few hours later, this man and his nine year
Speaker 1: old son were on a train bound for Terre Haute, Indiana.
Speaker 1: By nightfall, they were seated in the doctor's kitchen, watching
Speaker 1: as the gray haired man took a jar down from
Speaker 1: the shelf. He removed a small, dark pebble and placed
Speaker 1: it in a pot of fresh milk, giving it several
Speaker 1: minutes to soak up the liquid. Then he took the
Speaker 1: stone and held it against the boy's bite mark. When
Speaker 1: he removed his hand, the stone stuck in place, and
Speaker 1: that was bad news. The doctor said. It meant that
Speaker 1: Robert was infected, but there was still a chance to
Speaker 1: save him. For the rest of the night, they kept
Speaker 1: the stone pressed against the wound. Whenever it dried out
Speaker 1: and fell off, the doctor would place it back in
Speaker 1: a pot of boiling milk. Green scum soon rose to
Speaker 1: the surface, indicating that the stone had extracted some of
Speaker 1: the poison. They repeated the process until it was almost mourning,
Speaker 1: and finally, as dawn broke, the stone refused to stick
Speaker 1: to the wound. The poison had all been soaked up.
Speaker 1: Now the lawyer was skeptical, but also hopeful. He asked
Speaker 1: the doctor for the bill, but the man refused payment,
Speaker 1: saying that taking money for using a madstone would dampen
Speaker 1: its efficacy. And yeah, the lawyer wasn't sure what to
Speaker 1: make of that, But after a few days, Robert still
Speaker 1: had not displayed any raby symptoms. They returned home to Springfield,
Speaker 1: relieved and eager to put the experience behind them, and
Speaker 1: the lawyer still wasn't sure that he believed in the madstone.
Speaker 1: Then he didn't speak of it much after that, but
Speaker 1: the people of Tara Hate remembered the visit, especially a
Speaker 1: few years later when that lawyer, or should I say
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, became the sixteenth President of the United State.
Speaker 1: Dates I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the
Speaker 1: Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: This show was created by me, Aaron Mankey in partnership
Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
Speaker 1: the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.