Martin A Couney Essay

The public broadcasting network says, “Prior to 1900, infant mortality rates of two and three hundred obtained throughout the world. The infant mortality rate would fluctuate sharply according to the weather, the harvest, war, and epidemic disease. In severe times, a majority of infants would die within one year. In good times, perhaps two hundred per thousand would die. So great was the pre-modern loss of children's lives that anthropologists claim to have found groups that do not name children until they have survived a year. By the early decades of the 1900s, a wide range of improvements begin the drive the infant mortality rate down. Central heating meant that infants were no longer were exposed to icy drafts for hours. Clean drinking water eliminated a common path of infection. More food meant healthier infants and mothers. Better hygiene eliminated another path of infection. Cheaper clothing meant better clothing on infants. More babies were born in hospitals, which were suddenly being cleaned up as the infectious nature of dirt became clear. Later in the century, antibiotics and vaccinations join the …show more content…
Although Couney claims to have been the one to patent baby incubators, research by Claire Prentice at the Smithsonian shows that he never registered an incubator in any patent office. On top of that, Claire Prentice at the Smithsonian also says, “Couney, throughout his career, said he had studied medicine in Leipzig and Berlin. However, I could find no evidence of Couney (or Cohn/Cohen as he was known then) having studied medicine at a university in either city. To become a physician in Germany, one was required to write a thesis. The U.S. National Library of Medicine has copies of the German records: the librarians could not locate a thesis written by