11 ms·

Fake doctor saved thousands of infants and changed medical history (2018)

272 points by Alex3917 7y ago

playing_colours 7y ago
I cannot even express how much love and gratitude I feel to him and people like him. He is like the father to all those people whose lives he saved. Something inside me is longing to be able to do similar deeds, and have such a meaningful, impactful life!
- pjkundert 7y ago
  Perhaps championing Adoption is one such strategy? Today, young women who find themselves pregnant face a similar stark choice, as mothers of preemies did back then: they're given the choice of either Abortion, or Abandonment in state institutions, both of which dehumanize the lost children. Adoption of children faces the same cultural ambivalence that preemies and slaves faced historically, even though there are millions of adoptive parents who wait years for a child! In my province of Canada, the number of adopted infants is in the single digits, while thousands of families wait for years without a child, and thousands of babies are aborted -- and the mother is never given the choice to allow the child to grow up in a loving family... Perhaps we can make the loss and abandonment of children as unthinkable as slavery and discarding preemies to die was!
  - deftnerd 7y ago
    I imagine that one of the difficulties is that a woman who gets pregnant and doesn't want to have the child finds that the process of pregnancy and birth is very difficult financially. It increases expenses, and decreases available time for employment which affects their finances from the supply side too. Many people find that practical concerns, like finances, override any moral qualms they might have on the concept. If the US ever gets a socialized medical system, it'll be interesting to see if abortions decrease and babies available for adoption increase. Pregnant people will still face a decrease in finances on the supply side because they'll have to take time off work, but removing the expenses could reduce the problems with the practicality of basically being an incubator for needy parents who want to adopt.
Animats 7y ago
“You had a raging climate of eugenics which did not directly target preemies, but did directly target children who had severe disabilities. It was an environment where we only wanted to produce the fittest babies. That was a very strong cultural undercurrent. People just felt like these children were not worth saving.” Yes, the US used to have quality control on people. Ellis Island was a quality control checkpoint for immigrants. The sick were rejected and sent back where they came from.
- Alex3917 7y ago
  > The sick were rejected and sent back where they came from. Only if they were also poor. First class passengers on the boats didn’t go through medical screening.
  - ltbarcly3 7y ago
    That's probably because of injustice, it goes without saying that people who lived 'back then' didn't have functional brains and they were all racist automatons. Most steerage passengers spent about 3 hours being screened at Ellis Island, and most of that was waiting in line. This is not dramatically worse than a typical wait at customs at any international airport at a peak hour. To this day they still let First Class passengers off the airplane first so they get to be the first in line at customs.
    - isostatic 7y ago
      > To this day they still let First Class passengers off the airplane first so they get to be the first in line at customs. Doesn't really help at large airports as that just means you're first in the queue behind the previous 5 planes. Some airports do have a faster immigration line for first/business passengers though. I don't recall any in the U.S, but Heathrow does for example.
- zerr 7y ago
  Isn't it the same nowadays? And for many countries in general.
good_guy 7y ago
"Do you concur"
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
srge 7y ago
TL;DR: "Martin Couney, a self-appointed “doctor” — his credentials turned out to be nonexistent — who nonetheless saved thousands of infants, and introduced incubators to the modern world."
- ewidar 7y ago
  > to the modern world To the USA, the technology was apparently already in use in Europe.
  - Sharlin 7y ago
    Yeah, that was a weird turn of phrase in the article.
leoc 7y ago
For context, 1920 is five years after Chicago doctor Harry Haiselden murdered disabled baby John Bollinger to widespread public support from all the best people (Clarence Darrow ofc, Hellen Keller ...), and three years after he released a film about it. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-black-stork-9780195135398 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-black-stork-9780...
- Shivetya 7y ago
  there has always been a connection between the policies of Nazi Germany and American's treatment of those who were not valued either because of race or disabilities. I have provided a link to two articles but there are many more https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-r... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-am...
- homonculus1 7y ago
  Whatever your ethical stance may be, refusing to perform a surgery is not murder.
  - leoc 7y ago
    When have a duty of care to them, refuse surgery with the specific intention of causing their death, and prevent others from assisting them, then yes it is.
savingGrace 7y ago
The title 'Fake doctor' makes this piece sound very negative from the get-go. I assumed I was going to be reading about people abusing the medical field. Instead it was about a man trying to help save babies.
dev_dull 7y ago
> Woolsey recalled a sideshow exhibit featuring prematurely born babies whose lives were saved right there on the Boardwalk. Resting in new machines called incubators, the babies made medical history while serving as a prime attraction for gawking tourists. I read that and thought "what in the world. A spectacle? Can you imagine such a thing today?" Then I finished reading and saw this line: > Visitors were charged a quarter to view the babies, and the money went to their care.

272 points by Alex3917 7y ago

I cannot even express how much love and gratitude I feel to him and people like him. He is like the father to all those people whose lives he saved. Something inside me is longing to be able to do similar deeds, and have such a meaningful, impactful life!

pjkundert 7y ago
Perhaps championing Adoption is one such strategy? Today, young women who find themselves pregnant face a similar stark choice, as mothers of preemies did back then: they're given the choice of either Abortion, or Abandonment in state institutions, both of which dehumanize the lost children. Adoption of children faces the same cultural ambivalence that preemies and slaves faced historically, even though there are millions of adoptive parents who wait years for a child! In my province of Canada, the number of adopted infants is in the single digits, while thousands of families wait for years without a child, and thousands of babies are aborted -- and the mother is never given the choice to allow the child to grow up in a loving family... Perhaps we can make the loss and abandonment of children as unthinkable as slavery and discarding preemies to die was!
- deftnerd 7y ago
  I imagine that one of the difficulties is that a woman who gets pregnant and doesn't want to have the child finds that the process of pregnancy and birth is very difficult financially. It increases expenses, and decreases available time for employment which affects their finances from the supply side too. Many people find that practical concerns, like finances, override any moral qualms they might have on the concept. If the US ever gets a socialized medical system, it'll be interesting to see if abortions decrease and babies available for adoption increase. Pregnant people will still face a decrease in finances on the supply side because they'll have to take time off work, but removing the expenses could reduce the problems with the practicality of basically being an incubator for needy parents who want to adopt.

Animats 7y ago

“You had a raging climate of eugenics which did not directly target preemies, but did directly target children who had severe disabilities. It was an environment where we only wanted to produce the fittest babies. That was a very strong cultural undercurrent. People just felt like these children were not worth saving.” Yes, the US used to have quality control on people. Ellis Island was a quality control checkpoint for immigrants. The sick were rejected and sent back where they came from.

Alex3917 7y ago
> The sick were rejected and sent back where they came from. Only if they were also poor. First class passengers on the boats didn’t go through medical screening.
- ltbarcly3 7y ago
  That's probably because of injustice, it goes without saying that people who lived 'back then' didn't have functional brains and they were all racist automatons. Most steerage passengers spent about 3 hours being screened at Ellis Island, and most of that was waiting in line. This is not dramatically worse than a typical wait at customs at any international airport at a peak hour. To this day they still let First Class passengers off the airplane first so they get to be the first in line at customs.
  - isostatic 7y ago
    > To this day they still let First Class passengers off the airplane first so they get to be the first in line at customs. Doesn't really help at large airports as that just means you're first in the queue behind the previous 5 planes. Some airports do have a faster immigration line for first/business passengers though. I don't recall any in the U.S, but Heathrow does for example.
zerr 7y ago
Isn't it the same nowadays? And for many countries in general.

good_guy 7y ago

"Do you concur"

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

srge 7y ago

TL;DR: "Martin Couney, a self-appointed “doctor” — his credentials turned out to be nonexistent — who nonetheless saved thousands of infants, and introduced incubators to the modern world."

ewidar 7y ago
> to the modern world To the USA, the technology was apparently already in use in Europe.
- Sharlin 7y ago
  Yeah, that was a weird turn of phrase in the article.

leoc 7y ago

For context, 1920 is five years after Chicago doctor Harry Haiselden murdered disabled baby John Bollinger to widespread public support from all the best people (Clarence Darrow ofc, Hellen Keller ...), and three years after he released a film about it. https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-black-stork-9780195135398 https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-black-stork-9780...

Shivetya 7y ago
there has always been a connection between the policies of Nazi Germany and American's treatment of those who were not valued either because of race or disabilities. I have provided a link to two articles but there are many more https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-racism-influenced-hitler https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-r... https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-america-taught-the-nazis/540630/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/11/what-am...
homonculus1 7y ago
Whatever your ethical stance may be, refusing to perform a surgery is not murder.
- leoc 7y ago
  When have a duty of care to them, refuse surgery with the specific intention of causing their death, and prevent others from assisting them, then yes it is.

savingGrace 7y ago

The title 'Fake doctor' makes this piece sound very negative from the get-go. I assumed I was going to be reading about people abusing the medical field. Instead it was about a man trying to help save babies.

dev_dull 7y ago

> Woolsey recalled a sideshow exhibit featuring prematurely born babies whose lives were saved right there on the Boardwalk. Resting in new machines called incubators, the babies made medical history while serving as a prime attraction for gawking tourists. I read that and thought "what in the world. A spectacle? Can you imagine such a thing today?" Then I finished reading and saw this line: > Visitors were charged a quarter to view the babies, and the money went to their care.