A WARM WELCOME
GETTY IMAGES
Tucked up in incubators and with a nurse by their side, premature babies undergo specialist care at the Beaujon Hospital in Paris. The incubator was still a relatively new phenomenon at the time this picture was taken, having been developed by the obstetrician Stéphane Tarnier in 1880. Inspired by similar devices used to hatch chicks, the Frenchman’s incubators allowed early arrivals to grow and develop in the warm, humid conditions necessary to survive. Although the concept initially failed to catch on, this changed after the 1896 Berlin Trade Exhibition, when Dr Pierre Budin and his apprentice, Martin Couney, showed off their own incubators as part of a popular exhibit.
Couney later went on to open a similar visitor attraction in New York, featuring real, premature babies. Using admission fees to support running costs, many young lives were saved as a result.