Monod Hospital, Seattle

The Monod Hospital in Seattle, Washington was one of the earliest hospitals in the US to use incubators. There was apparently no connection between Monod Hospital and the incubator baby sideshows at Seattle’s Wonderland, Eden Musee, and Luna Park.

“One Seattle hospital — Monod Hospital, located at 2815 1st Avenue in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood — apparently utilized a primitive form of baby incubator as early as 1901. On November 9, 1901, The Seattle Times reported, “There are three babies in incubators at the Monod Hospital … there, wrapped in warm flannels and laid away in a box within a box, surrounded with bags filled with warm water, and apartments filled with warm air, which is at all times kept at an even temperature by a heating apparatus underneath, repose the little ones.”

“Dr. Adrian Monod immigrated to America from Paris in 1891, establishing an office in Seattle in 1898. It is possible that he knew Dr. Tarnier and another early proponent of incubators, Dr. Pierre Boudin, and probable that he knew of their work with premature infants. Adrian Monod drowned in 1902, and the hospital was sold in 1904. It is unclear for how long these early incubators were in use at this facility.”  — Source: Blog post at Historylink.org, by Paula Becker.

Based on contemporary press accounts, it seems that incubators were in use at Monod Hospital as early as 1899, and still in use in 1901.