"The person who has health has hope; and the person who has hope has everything."
Arabic proverb
Inspired by chicken incubators, which had been based on those depicted in Egyptian hieroglyphs, a French obstetrician by the name of Etienne Stephane Tarnier enlisted the help of a poultry raiser, Odile Martin, to construct incubators suitable for human infants. This 1880 adaptation of an ancient design has gone on to save millions of lives.
The design was very simple: two chambers, one on top of the other with space for a baby in the upper chamber, and water heated by an oil lamp in the lower chamber. The lower chamber gently warmed the upper chamber whereas an opening in the uppermost compartment ensured that the infant could breathe. Since 1880 incubators have changed hugely with the modern version housing some of the most sophisticated equipment humans have devised.
With around fourteen million babies born prematurely worldwide each year the need for a means to support fragile infants is clear. The exact number of lives this invention has saved is harder to determine. It is hard to imagine that just over a century ago premature babies were being placed in jars filled with feathers to help them through their perilous inaugurations into this world.
