There’s a thing called “infantile amnesia,” a natural part of aging where our brain forgets what we experienced from an incredibly young age.
Most people don’t remember their birth or even their toddler years outside of vague nostalgia or deja vu. It’s a natural part of growing up.
And about 12 percent of those births have forgotten one very crucial detail associated with their first few breaths: they may not have breathed them naturally.
As many as 11.4 percent of childbirths are preemies – earlier than expected, and as a result, underdeveloped from not enough time in the womb. This used to be a nearly fatal complication, but one man changed that.
Martin Couney was a Polish medical expert who invented and commoditized the medical Incubator, the external artificial life source for preemie infants.
Thanks to his invention and forethought, millions of children were given the shot at life that cruel nature would have taken from them.
It must have taken a tremendous medical mind to create such an invention, and when it was standardized, it must have been a revolution that was lauded for its life-saving capabilities. But the reality of the situation is much different.
10 /10 The Man
Martin Arthur Couney was first known as Michael Cohen and was born in 1869 in Krotoszyn, Poland. Sometime later, he entered the medical field.
Very little is known about his early life because he never kept his stories straight and never seemed to dwell on his parentage, youth, or life beyond his profession.
He only became known when he started practicing medicine – which he also lied about.
9 /10 The Myth
Couney never became a doctor, at least not by European standards.
He claimed to have studied at Leipzig and Berlin, but no records were ever found to corroborate this, and he never produced a thesis as a requirement for a doctorate.
Regardless of the truth to his legacy, he ended up learning enough about medicine through apprenticeships around Europe that he became keenly fixed on one idea: making babies live past what society expected of them.