Futility Closet - 344-Martin Couney's Incubator Babies

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 11,000 quirky curiosities from potato orthography to a listening throne. This is episode 344. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. For more than 40 years in the early 20th century, Martin Cooney ran a sideshow in which premature babies were displayed in incubators. With this odd practice, he offered a valuable service in an era when many hospitals couldn't. In today's show, we'll describe Cooney's unusual enterprise, which earned both criticism

Starting point is 00:00:45 and praise. We'll also marvel over an Amazonian survival and puzzle over a pleasing refusal. And just a quick programming note, we'll be off next week, so we'll be back with a new episode on June 7th. On an evening visit to Coney Island in 1939, an observer might have overheard a young man speaking in low tones to an audience on the boardwalk. He said, you may talk, ladies and gentlemen, you may cough. They will not hear you. They do not even know you are here. Now, this little baby came in nine days ago. It weighed only one pound, 11 ounces, and we were afraid we might be too late. It was even bluer than that little fellow over there in the other incubator. Yes, ma'am, it was a premature birth, a little over six months. He was promoting a remarkable exhibition, one in which visitors could view

Starting point is 00:01:39 prematurely born infants displayed in incubators. Before these devices were invented, caring for infants had been largely the responsibility of mothers. Most babies were born at home, and doctors weren't involved to the extent they are today. As a result, the death rate among premature infants could be as high as 85%. Infant incubators had been exhibited in Europe since the 1890s, but American hospitals were slow to accept them. Experts in infant care in the early 1900s believed that premature babies were weaklings who would likely pass on that trait even if they survived. At Martin Cooney's sideshow, babies were brought in by both parents and physicians. They were smaller even than many hospitals in that era

Starting point is 00:02:21 were equipped to handle. Visitors paid 25 cents to watch nurses feed or bathe the babies, which typically weighed only two or three pounds. One of Cooney's nurses used to illustrate their tiny size by passing a diamond ring over a baby's hand and up the length of its arm. Many in the medical establishment were uneasy at Cooney's practice, making a spectacle of babies on the midway among freak shows and fan dancers. They called him tawdry and unscientific, doubted his faith in incubators, and suspected his motives in earning a living by displaying vulnerable infants. He kept it up anyway.

Starting point is 00:03:01 For almost 50 years, the Sideshow toured fairs, amusement parks, and expositions around the United States, with Cooney's slogan, All the World Loves a Baby, written at the door to every show. His machines were unsophisticated by modern standards, but most of his patients went home in a couple of months, and Cooney and his wife, May, would later receive visits from grown-ups whom they'd saved, as well as invitations to their graduations and weddings. The man behind all this was something of an enigma. Almost everything we know about his early life comes from an interview he did in 1939 with A.J. Liebling of The New Yorker, and much of what he said there, it appears, is false. He claimed to have come from Alsace, to have attended medical school in Germany, and to have gone on to Paris to study with the pioneering obstetrician Pierre Constant Budin. In truth, he seems to have been Polish. There is

Starting point is 00:03:45 no record of his education in either Leipzig or Berlin, as he claimed, and it appears that he didn't even have a medical license. Boudin was real enough. He is regarded today as a founder of modern perinatal medicine. He had discovered in particular that premature infants are crucially vulnerable to cold, and he sought ways to interest the international community in an early incubator that he'd developed. Cooney said Boudin had sent him to exhibit some of these incubators at the Berlin Exposition of 1896. He decided the exhibit would be more compelling if it included live premature infants, and he managed to borrow six from the maternity ward of Berlin's Charité Hospital, whose director felt this was a small

Starting point is 00:04:25 risk since most of them were not likely to survive anyway. Before the exposition opened, Cooney had to think of a German name for his exhibit, and he settled on Kinderbrutenschtalt, which means child hatchery. That name inspired comic songs in the city, but it also spread the fame of the exhibit, and Cooney's pavilion was soon thronged with visitors, each of whom paid one German mark to look at the babies. In two months, they received more than 100,000 visitors, and all six infants survived, a testament to the new technology. By the time the Berlin exhibit closed, a British promoter had drafted Cooney to set up a similar show to coincide with Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in London.

Starting point is 00:05:09 The hospitals there refused to lend babies, but Cooney returned to Paris, borrowed some from Boudin, and transported them back across the Channel in washbaskets, warming them with pillows placed over hot water bottles. When the exhibit went forward in 1897, its popularity surpassed even that of Berlin, drawing 3,600 people a day. Cooney had found he had a flair for this peculiar job, and he decided to become a professional doctor turned showman. The following year found him in Omaha, Nebraska, at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition of 1898, occupying a small white building under a sign reading, Infant Incubators with Living Infants.

Starting point is 00:05:43 Inside, the babies were cared for by a cadre of nurses whom Cooney supervised. The incubators with living infants. Inside, the babies were cared for by a cadre of nurses whom Cooney supervised. The incubators were metal boxes with glass sides, a warm water heating system kept each baby's mattress warm, and a ventilation system provided fresh air. The show's reception in Omaha was indifferent, but three years later, at the Buffalo World's Fair, it was a hit. Eight machines were arranged along the walls of the building, and visitors filed between railings as nurses held up the infants. Cooney would greet each guest and pose for photos with the babies. This incubator station was already more elaborate than that in any American hospital, but still the fair organizers placed Cooney's show in the midway over his protests. This would become a frustrating cycle for his so-called

Starting point is 00:06:25 infatorium. Exhibiting in sideshows debased Cooney's reputation, and that reputation kept him from advancing to more respectable venues. But he moved gamely onward from Buffalo to Topeka and then to the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, and on from there. He would exhibit infants at American fairs and expositions for the next 40 years, most famously in New York, where his yearly exhibition at Luna Park became the longest running show at Coney Island, running from 1904 to 1943. Though it saved thousands of infants, Coney's show was regarded more as a curiosity than as a valuable medical service. His exhibit at Chicago's Century of Progress in 1933

Starting point is 00:07:06 was assigned not to the Hall of Science, but to the Midway, and at the 1939 World's Fair, it was found not in the Health and Medicine Exhibit Hall, but behind the Parachute Jump. He was taken to task continually for the seeming seediness of these venues. In 1903, the Brooklyn Eagle called Coney Island the strangest place on earth for human infants to be fed, nursed, and cared for. It said the idea of haranguing the passing throng in an effort to divert its shekels for a spectacle so serious, not to say sacred, strikes one as questionable, almost repellent. The exhibition could be surprisingly lucrative. At the Panama Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco in 1915, it took in $72,000, nearly $1.7 million in today's money.

Starting point is 00:07:52 But Cooney used that money to defray the cost of the care and to pay a good wage to the nurses who gave it. No parents were ever charged for the service. And his success rate underscored the value of his methods. In 1905, the Minneapolis Daily Times wrote, It is a matter of statistical record that previous to the use of the incubator, only 15% of the prematurely born lived. By use of the incubator, 85% are saved.

Starting point is 00:08:17 And he showed that being born prematurely did not make one a runt or a weakling, as had previously been believed. Liebling noted that one of Cooney's first American preemies, displayed at the Omaha exhibition in 1898, grew up to win a Croix de Guerre in World War I. Despite the stigma, Cooney took his work seriously and grew irate at the suggestion that he was merely a showman. He told Liebling, All my life I have been making propaganda for the proper care of preemies, who in other times were allowed to die. When a competitor's incompetently run incubator show led to dozens of deaths at the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, Cooney published an outraged open letter in the New York Evening Journal.

Starting point is 00:08:55 He wrote, To place this affair in the hands of ignorant people, not one of whom has any technical knowledge or experience in this line of work, is to deceive the mothers of this country, whom they sent back with nothing but corpses. Pediatrician John Zahorsky, who looked into that scandal, wrote, The feeling of the medical profession is against the show of incubators. We feel it degrading to human sentiment to make an exhibition of human misfortunes, especially in the shape of tiny infants.

Starting point is 00:09:21 But he allowed that incubator shows could be beneficial. They called attention to the problems of premature birth in the United States, they provided a service that the poor could not otherwise afford, and they could advance science. Still, prejudice stood against them. When the Coney Island amusement park Dreamland caught fire in 1911, Coney's staff managed to save all five babies in the exhibition, but still John D. Lindsay, the president of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, wrote an angry letter to the editor saying that their salvation had been a mere chance. He called the show purely

Starting point is 00:09:56 mercenary, violating every principle of medical or professional ethics, and insisted that prematurely born infants should be cared for in hospitals. The problem was, they weren't. Hospitals couldn't spare nurses to devote attention around the clock to a child who was too weak to suckle. As late as 1939 in New York City, a hospital might have a single incubator, which new parents might learn was already in use or prohibitively expensive. Cooney would accept the most desperate cases, offering 24-hour supervision for weeks or months, and return the baby to its parents when it had stabilized or when his concession had to close for the season. To be sure, Cooney's incubators were primitive by modern standards, and many babies still died despite their use. But by charging admission

Starting point is 00:10:39 to fairgoers, Cooney could offer to care for any infant free of charge. Some days a baby was lost, but at least it had a chance. As he returned one baby to her parents in 1932, Cooney told a reporter, I think I love her as much as her parents. I can't understand why some people still think these premature babies aren't worth saving. Incubators waned in popularity in the second decade of the century. After 1910, Cooney didn't set up a show at a World's Fair until 1933, working instead at amusement parks in Atlantic City, Denver, Chicago, and other cities. In 1917, one pediatrician wrote that incubators are passé except at country fairs and sideshows. The one bright spot in this decline was Cooney's friendship with Dr. Julius Hess of Chicago, who would become the leading figure in American neonatal medicine

Starting point is 00:11:25 in the 1920s. Hess had taken an early interest in incubators, saw value in Cooney's work, and supported him unwaveringly, accepting and adapting his ideas. When Hess published the field's first textbook in 1922, he credited Cooney in the preface, and in 1933 he transferred babies from the Infant Incubator Center at Michael Reese Hospital to Cooney's exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair. In 1939, when Cooney was exhibiting at the New York World's Fair, has stopped by and wrote in the guest book, My dear Martin, now that I cannot be with you in person,

Starting point is 00:11:57 may I be allowed to thank my great teacher in this wholly unsatisfactory way for your great contribution to me and the medical profession. Yours has not only been one of scientific leadership, but, equally important to progress, a most ethical one in every respect, and you can look back on a life well spent. Thanks to the efforts of Hess and others, hospital neonatal care made steady gains, so much so that by the end of the 1930s, incubators seemed simply out of place in a sideshow. In 1939, a young boy stood outside Cooney's baby exhibit and warned customers,

Starting point is 00:12:35 they don't do no tricks, they just sleep. In 1943, when Cornell Hospital opened New York's first dedicated premature infant station, Martin Cooney closed his show, saying that his work was done. When he died seven years later, hospitals were routinely welcoming premature babies and caring for them in incubators. It cannot be said that Martin Cooney himself inspired a revolution in neonatal care. Incubator technology evolved throughout his career and would have done so if he hadn't exhibited. But he did provide a service when hospitals weren't equipped to care for all the premature babies that were born, and he conducted it to a remarkably high standard. E. Harrison Nickman, a pediatrician at Atlantic City Hospital, said in the 1970s, It's the first time I ever saw oxygen piped into a series of units.

Starting point is 00:13:15 He had a pipeline just like we have now. I've never seen a hospital as clean as that place. Not only was the nursery clean, the place where the people circulated was clean. Anybody that dropped anything, it was picked up right away. Absolutely immaculate. Of the 8,000 babies who passed through his incubators, Martin Cooney is credited with saving at least 6,500. Richard Chandler, head of neonatal services at Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, said in 2015, We think this is a spectacle. We could never do this today. But at the time,

Starting point is 00:13:46 he was a leader, and I think we owe a lot of the very basic principles of neonatology to this gentleman. The main story in episode 161 was about a teenager in 1971 who survived falling from an airliner that broke apart in a storm and then undertook an arduous trek through the Peruvian rainforest to try to find help. And two of our listeners recently sent a follow-up to that story. Ken Somolinos wrote, Hi, Futilitarians! Saw this story in the New York Times and was reminded of Episode 161, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky. Crazy anybody survives this kind of thing. And Pat Weedorn said, Seems that having your plane crash in the jungle and walking out of it is still a thing people do these days. Both sent a link to a story from March about Antonio Sena, a 36-year-old

Starting point is 00:14:47 Brazilian pilot who, due to lack of work during the pandemic, reluctantly accepted a job to fly diesel fuel to an illegal mine in the Brazilian Amazon. Wildcat mining has been flourishing in recent decades in parts of the Amazon that are supposed to be protected from human activities. in parts of the Amazon that are supposed to be protected from human activities. On January 28th, Sena took off in a 48-year-old small propeller plane and was 3,000 feet over the rainforest when the plane's sole engine stopped. He aimed the aircraft toward a small valley and sent out a mayday message as he descended. The crash was cushioned a bit by the tree canopy, and after hitting the ground, Sena managed to grab a few items and scramble out of the plane,

Starting point is 00:15:27 which was carrying 160 gallons of diesel fuel, before it burst into flames. He had a pocket knife, flashlight, two lighters, and a phone with a little battery left. At first, Sena stayed near the charred remains of the plane, thinking it was his best chance of being found. But search flights flew right over him without seeing him, despite his yelling and waving. So after fruitlessly waiting for help for several days, he decided that he would need to try to find it for himself. He used a mapping app on his dying phone to decide to head to the Paru River, about 60 miles away,

Starting point is 00:16:02 as it was the closest area that he knew that was inhabited, and he started walking, slogging through the swamps and using the sun's position to head east towards the river. He set up a campsite each afternoon on higher ground to try to avoid predators, and struggled to build fires using mostly damp wood. His camps were frequently besieged by territorial spider monkeys, which would try to destroy his homemade shelters, though by watching the monkeys he learned about eating a small pink fruit called brew, which became his primary source of food. About four weeks after the crash, when Sena hadn't eaten for the past three days, he heard a chainsaw in the distance. He had to make camp for the night, fearing getting lost in the dark, but prayed that he would hear it again the next day, which he did briefly the next morning. He set off towards the sound, and in the afternoon

Starting point is 00:16:49 he found a campsite of villagers collecting Brazil nuts, who, luckily for Sena, had ventured deeper into the forest than they usually did. Sena had lost 55 pounds, or 25 kilograms, over the four weeks he was alone. He later said that he had gained a new appreciation for the rainforest, which is being ravaged daily by the types of illegal mining operations that he briefly worked for. He said that if he had fallen into a different type of uninhabited terrain, I wouldn't have water, shelter, or what to eat. The Amazon is so rich.

Starting point is 00:17:21 That story is remarkably similar to Yuliana Kupka's. I mean, broadly speaking, following a river. That really reminds me of her story. It's kind of amazing that anybody could survive in those conditions. In a follow-up on a rather different topic, we heard from one of our listeners who asked to be anonymous.

Starting point is 00:17:40 In episode 337, you had a follow-up discussion about people voluntarily changing their birth date seeking to give themselves an advantage for one reason or another. You also mentioned that this practice mostly occurred in the past. However, there's also other reasons to change the date of your birthday to avoid being associated with bad events. A practice I can tell you definitively continues in the USA even up to the near present day. My niece, my brother's daughter, was born literally as the planes were crashing into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Starting point is 00:18:14 My brother was a doctor at the same hospital where his daughter was born and conspired with the staff there to enter his daughter's birthday as September 12. I can also tell you for a fact that my niece was far from the only child born at the hospital that day whose legally filed birthday was changed to September 12th. Keep up the good work, as always. I hadn't thought about that, but that must be the case, you know, that must affect thousands of people who were born on that day. Yeah, I had mentioned in episode 328 that due to parents choosing baby's birth dates

Starting point is 00:18:47 to some extent with induced births and C-sections, that you do see a drop in the number of births on September 11th compared to the days after it. But I hadn't thought of parents just falsifying a child's birthday to try to avoid that date. Also because that day is remembered, the events of that day are remembered by the date.

Starting point is 00:19:04 That's what they're called. Yeah, events that day are remembered by the date. That's what they're called. Yeah, it's called September 11th. Yeah. On the topic of changing your birth date, Alex Fensom wrote, Hi, Sharon and Greg. Hope you guys are well. The latest episodes discussion about birthdays reminded me of a well-known issue in cricket with players claiming to be younger than they actually are. There are a number of reasons why people do this and different measures that are used to combat it discussed in these articles. It is sadly particularly common on the Indian subcontinent. Sometimes that's because players are from places where records are not well kept, but sometimes it's deliberate as discussed above.

Starting point is 00:19:38 It can be treated as a bit of a joke around the world of cricket, but sometimes it does mean you have to treat age records with suspicion. There are some notable cricketers rumored to have falsified their age knowingly or unknowingly. The Pakistani player Shahid Afridi supposedly scored his first international hundred at 16, but has now admitted that he was at least three years older. The Afghanistan bowler Rashid Khan, officially 22 years old, has also been surrounded by rumors about his age. He burst onto the scene as a 17-year-old, but many people have suggested he's a lot older than that. I doubt anyone will ever know for sure. from May of last year titled, Why Age Fraud in Indian Sports is So Prevalent, written by PSM Chandran, a former director of the Sports Authority of India. Chandran states, the problem happens with the blessings of parents, coaches, and school authorities and thrives because of the complacency of sports governing bodies. Chandran notes that altering athletes' birth dates so that they can

Starting point is 00:20:43 qualify to participate in competitions restricted to particular age groups is seen in all sports in India, but that cricketers lead the pack in this regard. Falsification of documents is a criminal offense in India, and while there have been cases of players, parents, and even club owners being charged with a crime for this, often, sports governing bodies choose not to report these situations to the police and instead institute their own penalties. The Board of Control for Cricket in India, or BCCI, has been taking at least some steps to try to curb the problem. An article in ESPN Crick Info from August 2020 says that the board had suspended 236 players over the past two years for age fraud. The BCCI stated that age fraud has long been a menace in Indian cricket for the different age

Starting point is 00:21:32 group levels, and at the time of the article, they were implementing an amnesty program where players could declare committing age fraud and avoid suspension by providing their actual dates of birth, but would face bans if they didn't volunteer this information and were found to be in violation. Although the use of official birth registration certificates has increased in India quite a bit in the last two decades, such documents and others such as school records may sometimes still not be available, especially for players from rural areas, or players may falsely claim the lack of them, or their parents or officials may just falsify such documents. To try to overcome these

Starting point is 00:22:11 issues, the BCCI has been relying on the Tanner White House 3 Bone Maturation Test, which estimates a person's age based on wrist x-rays. While this seems like it would be a good way to get around any issues with missing or fraudulent documents, unfortunately the method is not infallible and is only useful for people up to the age of 16. The use of the test is somewhat controversial, and apparently the rules are that if the bone maturity age contradicts a player's documented age, it's the former that is used for determining if a player is eligible for a particular age level. Although it seems that the problem of age fraud in cricket is a rather acknowledged issue in India, as Alex mentioned, there have been some notable instances in other countries.

Starting point is 00:22:58 One of Alex's example, the Pakistan cricket legend Shahida Freedy, made a bit of a stir when he released his autobiography in 2019 and stated that he'd been born in 1975, not 1980, as officials had claimed while he was playing. He had made a famous international debut in 1996, where he scored a record-breaking 37-ball century, made all the more impressive because he was supposedly only 16 years old at the time. Prior to that, Afridi had been playing for Pakistan's under-19 team, while he apparently wasn't actually under-19. ESPN Crick Info also reports that a contemporary of Afridi's, Eunice Khan, announced his retirement from international T20 cricket in 2009, saying that at 34 he was too old for this kind of cricket. By his official records, though,

Starting point is 00:23:44 Khan should only have been 31 when he made that statement. I never thought about that somehow. If you're just presented with a human specimen, there's no way to tell reliably quite how old they are. Yeah. I mean, there must be, I mean, I know in forensics, there must be some methods, but that's for dead people. I don't know how well it translates to living people.

Starting point is 00:24:02 That's an interesting problem. Yeah, and to exactly pinpoint an age too, you know, because it matters if they're 18 or 19 or 20. Yeah. In episode 335, I read an email from Skye Edwards, who wrote to say that Skye's friend Toby hid a meteorite necklace for their partner in the Australian desert and revealed the location determined by the geocoding system What3Words through a series of puzzles. We recently received a Futility Closet coincidence follow-up on this from Sky. Dear Futilonauts, I had a surprise today, and as appreciators of coincidences, I thought you might enjoy this follow-up. Some months ago, I recommended Futility Closet to Toby, the mastermind behind our meteorite

Starting point is 00:24:44 escapades. They finally decided to start listening by incredible happenstance at episode 335. I was delighted to be told today by Toby that my anecdote was featured and stunned that Toby's first Futility Closet experience was hearing an episode that included their own puzzle. Toby sends their warmest and most enthusiastic greetings, or to quote directly, they said, Hi nerds! I can safely say that Toby, the puzzler, and Liam, the puzzle-ee, are, as of today, futility fanatics. So, hi nerds to Toby and Liam, and I think futility fanatics might be a new term for us, or maybe for our listeners. That is a big coincidence considering how big the archive is now. I know that they started on just that episode.

Starting point is 00:25:27 Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We always appreciate how much we learn from all of you. If you have anything that you'd like to add, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him a strange sounding situation, and he's going to try to figure out what's going on, asking yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Jack McLaughlin.

Starting point is 00:25:56 Alex sends a letter to her favorite brewery asking for a free sample. The head brewer sends a letter back that says no. Alex is happy as this is exactly what she wanted. Why? Does Alex work for the brewery? No. Okay. Asking for a free sample of beer?

Starting point is 00:26:15 No. Oh. That sounds like a valuable piece of information. Okay. An ingredient that goes into the making of beer? Yes. That's what she's looking for? Yes. Is her occupation important? Yes. Okay. An ingredient that goes into the making of beer. Yes. That's what she's looking for. Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:26 Is her occupation important? Yes. Okay. And she doesn't work for the brewery. Does she work for the government or some regulatory? No. For a competing brewery? Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:35 Wow. I'm doing really well. You're doing really well. Let's just acknowledge that before we go any further. A competing brewery. Okay. Is this, I'm trying to remember how beer is made. Is this so she can, her company, her brewery can use it in making its own beer? Yes.

Starting point is 00:26:55 So did I ask you if this is an ingredient of beer? Yes. So would you call this a free sample? She asked for the free sample, and they sent a letter back telling her no, but she's happy because this is what she wanted. Okay. When she contacted them, they didn't know that she worked for a competitor? Is that fair to say?

Starting point is 00:27:17 I don't know. But they may not have. They might not have. And she was happy that they denied that. No. It's always something you assume. They sent her back a letter saying, no, we deny your request for a free sample

Starting point is 00:27:37 of whatever ingredient this is. Yes. And you're saying she was happy at that. You said she was happy. Yes. But now you're saying she wasn't at that. You said she was happy. Yes. But now you're saying she wasn't happy at the receipt of that letter, at the knowledge that they were denying the... That's not what made her happy, that they were denying her.

Starting point is 00:27:56 She was happy about the receipt of the letter. Which is different. Which is different. Is there something... Would this still have happened if they'd sent her an email or a smoke signal? No. Okay. So had they inadvertently included something in the letter that gave her what she needed?

Starting point is 00:28:14 Yes. Is it this ingredient? Yes. So they said no, but accidentally granted the request? Yes. Do I need to know more than that? Well, I didn't know if you could figure out how. What the ingredient is?

Starting point is 00:28:25 Or how that would happen with a letter. Jack sent a hint that said that his high school biology teacher told the class this story, if that helps you. Yeah, I'm trying to think. Is it the yeast? It's the yeast. Jack says, Alex is also a brewer and wants a sample of the yeast the brewery uses, not a sample of beer.

Starting point is 00:28:44 Alex knows that anything sent from the brewery, like a paper, letter, or envelope, That's clever. And Jack sent a link to an article about a brewmaster who's actually creating a signature beer using the yeast found in his own beard. Because apparently yeast is everywhere. So thanks so much to Jack for that completely non-fatal puzzle, because I'm pretty sure that even the yeast get to live. And if you have a puzzle you'd like to send to us, please send that to podcast at futilitycloset.com. Just a reminder that we'll be off next week. In the meantime, if you'd like to Thank you. for the topics we've covered. If you have any comments or feedback for us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's eximious brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks.

Futility Closet - 344-Martin Couney's Incubator Babies

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