I’m now reading Clive Cussler’s Iceberg, his second published novel (and the second Dirk Pitt novel, as well). He hadn’t yet developed a lot of the details and idiosyncrasies that featured in his later novels, but the character of Pitt has remained pretty much the same over the years. The premise seems far-fetched (A ship is found frozen inside an iceberg, which doesn’t seem to surprise the iceberg expert at all), but I haven’t yet encountered the one outrageous thing that makes you stop and say “You’ve got to b kidding” that is standard in Cussler’s novels.
Not listening to any audiobooks at the moment. I’ve finished Philbrick’s Mayflower. Listening to music and the news on my commute.
My bedside reading is David L. Greene and Dick Martin’s The Oz Scrapbook, which I picked up at a flea market. I’d seen this book for years, but hadn’t read it. With the second half of Wicked opening this month (as countless advertising tie-ins keep reminding me), it seemed appropriate.
One new thing I learned right off the bat. I have remarked before about how Oz books (and a lot of early science fiction) take cues and ideas from the World’s Fairs and Expositions and the early amusement parks. The 1893 Chicago Exposition was “The White City” (as readers of Eric Larson know), and within five years they began building permanent parks with that name, first in Philadelphia and Cleveland and by 1905 in Chicago (probably the best known). It’s almost certain that Baum got the name “Emerald City” in Oz from The White City. Especially compelling is that “Emerald City” only appeared green because, by law, everyone had to wear green spectacles that were locked onto their faces while in the city (a detail that hasn’t been used in any film or cartoon adaptation I’m aware of).
What I learned is that there was a character in Baum’s books (in 1906) named “Chick the Cherub” Chick was the World’s First Incubator Baby. This is without a doubt inspired by the work of Dr. Martin A. Couney, who promoted the use of incubators for premature babies. The medical professions effective but unspoken philosophy was that they ought not to prolong the life of sickly infants who were going to die anyway. Couney went on a personal crusade to promote incubators to save such babies. If hospitals wouldn’t use them, then h would put them on public display at international exhibitions and trade fairs. Later, he put them in amusement parks. He started doing this at the 1896 Great Industrial Exposition in Berlin (Couney was German), and afterwards in LOndon and elsewhere. Several of his Infant Incubators ended up at amusement parks at Coney Island and at Wonderland in Boston (which is how I know about them) Nobody saw anything incongruous about this. Couney charged admission and plowed the profits back into the upkeep of the incubators. He insisted on the highest professional standards, keeping doctors and nurses on staff to look after the babies.
When I first learned o this, I thought that maybe they simply put local babies in the incubators, premature or not. But Couney’s incubator babies were all cases that needed the care of incubators. He kept these going until as late as the 1930s. By that time, incubators had been accepted by the medical profession, and were in hospitals. Couney’s mission was a success. There have been two biographies of him published in the past twenty years.
Here’s the kicker:
Couney never got a medical degree. In fact, I don’t think he ever got a college degree. But he’s highly regarded by many nonetheless. He undoubtedly saved a great many lives.