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Solomon Fischel (1869–1913)

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Solomon Fischel (1869–1913)

Editor’s Note: I have chosen to give Fischel a more extensive entry than is typical in the People section of the web site because his early death and Couney’s subsequent retellings of his origin story caused Fischel’s role to fade almost into obscurity. I have spent hours researching Fischel in newspaper archives to try and recapture a more complete picture of his participation in early incubator exhibits.

Solomon Fischel was a physician and businessman who played a central but largely unrecognized role in the incubator baby exhibition movement in the United States during the first decade of the twentieth century. For over twenty years he was the principal associate and business partner of Martin Couney, and he served as the primary road operator for the Infant Incubator Company, bringing incubator exhibits to regional fairs, amusement parks, and expositions across the country. Despite his prominence during his lifetime — including a nationally syndicated byline in the Hearst press — he has been almost entirely eclipsed in the historical literature by Couney, and his contribution to the early care of premature infants has received little scholarly attention.

Origins and Early Career

Fischel’s early biography has been uncertain, as he appears to have adjusted the details of his background for different audiences — a habit he shared with Couney. His obituary in the New York Times (October 20, 1913) stated that he was “born in Russia” and had been “a practicing eye specialist in Budapest and other Continental cities for several years.” The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (October 30, 1913), however, recorded his birthplace as Budapest, Hungary, with a birth year of 1870. A Buffalo newspaper in 1901 described him as “Dr. Fischel of Vienna,” and at the Florida Midwinter Exposition in Jacksonville in 1908 he was introduced as “of Berlin, Germany, the originator of the incubator.” Even his first name varied: he was “Dr. Albert Fischel” in the 1901 Buffalo press and “Dr. Solomon Fischel” in corporate documents and later accounts. Whether he held an actual medical degree is uncertain, though Dawn Raffel, author of The Strange Case of Dr. Couney, appears to accept that he was a physician, and his listing in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal‘s death notices lends weight to this view.

His passport applications of 1902 and 1908, however, give a somewhat different picture. The details vary slightly between the two applications but are consistent overall. He gives his name as Salomon Fischel in 1902 and Solomon in 1908, born in Poland, with a birthdate of July 20, 1869, and that he immigrated to the United States on May 18, 1887 arriving from Liverpool on the ship Aurania. He states that he was continuously residing in the US from 1887 to 1902 and naturalized in St. Louis on August 30, 1892, so it seems likely his port of arrival was St. Louis, although I have not been able to find any ships records for that arrival so far. The naturalization date is confirmed by St. Louis Circuit Court records. His permanent residence on the 1902 form is given as New York, while it is both New York and St. Louis on the 1908 form. His 1902 application was witnessed by Samuel Schenkein and the 1908 application was witnessed by Edward Buda. The 1902 application gives his occupation as “commercial man,” while the 1908 application says “merchant.” His immigration at the age of 18 makes his personal legend of having been a “practicing eye specialist in Budapest” seem implausible at best.

Association with Couney and Louise Recht

According to the New York Times obituary, Fischel “became associated with Dr. Martin Couney in Paris in 1890 in the infant incubator enterprise,” and the two “effected several improvements in infant incubators and obtained control of the exhibition of incubators in this country” – presumably by establishing a relationship with Paul Altmann of Berlin to sell the incubators he manufactured (Lion design). If accurate, this places Fischel’s involvement with the incubator exhibition movement at its very inception — years before the well-known exhibits at Earl’s Court (1897) and the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha (1898). However, since he would have only been 21 in 1890, if the birthdate on his passport application is correct, that date of 1890 has to be questioned.

The Times also reported that “one of Dr. Fischel’s associates of longest standing was Madam Louise Recht, who came from Paris with him in 1900, and had active charge of many of the operating incubators.” Recht, who trained at the Maternité in Paris — Pierre Budin’s institution — is usually described in the Couney literature as Couney’s head nurse. The fact that her arrival in America is linked in the contemporary record to Fischel rather than Couney suggests that it was Fischel who had the direct connection to the Paris medical world, and that Couney’s oft-repeated claims of having trained under Budin may have been an appropriation of Fischel’s network. Recht’s reaction to Fischel’s death in 1913 — she “hurried to his side, and physical force had to be used to get her away from the body” — suggests a bond that went well beyond professional association.

The Pan-American Exposition and Its Aftermath (1901)

Fischel was described by the Buffalo press as “chief in charge of the Baby Incubator at the Pan-American Exposition” in Buffalo in 1901. A contemporary account of the 1904 incubator baby reunion at Dreamland noted that the Cohen triplets, born on Pike Street in New York on July 17, 1901, had been “taken to Buffalo by Dr. Fischel” two days after their birth — indicating that he was actively involved in sourcing and transporting premature infants for the exhibits.

After the Pan-American Exposition closed, Fischel was detained in Buffalo by litigation over the division of profits and ownership of the incubator equipment. A wire story in the Lowell Daily Courier (November 8, 1901) reported that a claim for $92,250 had been filed by Emmet W. McConnell against Samuel Schenkein and “Martin A. Conry [sic] of Buffalo,” alleging that the two had “sequestered the apparatus, with the intention of taking it to the St. Louis fair without his consent.” Fischel was not named as a defendant. While the litigation played out, Fischel occupied himself with feats of competitive eating that were reported with evident amusement by the Buffalo newspapers. The Buffalo Courier (December 20, 1901) described a $100 wager between Fischel and Couney as to whether Fischel could eat 30 quail in 30 consecutive days. Couney, the article noted, “closely watches his partner. He has a stomach pump, a quantity of opium and dyspepsia tablets always on hand.”

The Infant Incubator Company and the Exhibition Circuit

In 1905, the Infant Incubator Company was incorporated in Albany, New York, to market and sell incubators manufactured by Kny-Scheerer and to supply equipment for Couney’s various exhibits. The directors included Dr. Solomon Fischel, H. H. Kaufman, and Samuel Schenkein. Fischel and Couney also operated under the name “Society for the Preservation of Infant Life.”

While Couney managed the permanent installations at Luna Park and Dreamland on Coney Island and at Atlantic City, Fischel appears to have served as the company’s principal traveling representative, taking incubator exhibits to smaller regional venues. Documented appearances include:

  • Little Rock, Arkansas, November 1899 – Little Rock Fair
  • Baltimore, September 1906 — the Home Product Show
  • Jacksonville, Florida, January 1908 — the Florida Midwinter Exposition at Dixieland Park
  • Chattanooga, Tennessee, 1908 – the Chattanooga Summer Festival
  • Knoxville, Tennessee, September 1910 — the Appalachian Exposition.
  • Cincinnati, Ohio, September 1910 – Ohio Valley Exhibition

These appearances, typically at winter or regional exhibitions while the Coney Island parks were in their off-season, suggest that Fischel operated a secondary circuit for the Infant Incubator Company, bringing the incubator show to audiences beyond the major world’s fairs and permanent amusement park installations. At these venues, he sourced premature infants locally — the Baltimore account makes clear he arrived with equipment but without patients — presumably through arrangements with local physicians and hospitals.

At Coney Island, Fischel was the listed contact for the Infant Incubator Company in a May 1, 1909 advertisement in The Billboard, offering “Baby Incubators, complete installations as operated by us, for sale to hospitals and amusement parks.” He was also in charge of the Dreamland incubator show when the park was destroyed by fire on May 27, 1911. Contemporary accounts report that Fischel arrived promptly at the Baby Incubator Building as the fire spread, and all six babies were successfully evacuated.

Public Profile

Fischel was not merely an operational figure but an active self-promoter. In September 1910, a full-page illustrated feature appeared in multiple Hearst-syndicated newspapers under the headline “What Becomes of the Incubator Babies” and the byline “By Dr. S. Fischel, Founder of Infant Incubator Hospitals in America.” The piece has been located in the San Francisco Examiner (September 11, 1910), the Kansas City Post (September 4, 1910), and the Spokesman-Review of Spokane, Washington (September 11, 1910), the St. Louis Star and Times (September 4, 1910), and likely appeared in other papers in the Hearst chain. The article featured photographs of incubator “graduates” including Hildegarde Couney, described as having been “brought up in one of the baby incubators her father invented,” and Walter Eanes Smith, grandson of the Commissioner of Agriculture of Florida. Fischel’s claim to be the “founder” of incubator hospitals in America, while Couney’s daughter was simultaneously described as the inventor’s child, suggests a negotiated division of credit between the two partners: Couney the inventor, Fischel the founder.

Death

Solomon Fischel died in New York City on October 19, 1913, at the age of 43, under circumstances that attracted considerable press attention. The New York Times reported on October 20 that Fischel had married Miss Anna Winter of Brooklyn the previous evening in a ceremony at a synagogue on Seventh Street, performed in Russian. He had complained of feeling ill at dinner before the wedding and ate nothing. After the ceremony, the wedding party took an automobile ride and had a late wedding dinner. At 4:00 AM, Fischel awoke with stomach pain at the Hotel Broztell. A physician was called, but Fischel died at 6:10 AM. The cause of death was given as heart failure brought on by indigestion; the attending physician believed a gastric abscess had ruptured. Friends reported that he had suffered from chronic stomach trouble and had been under the care of multiple specialists. The couple had planned to leave for San Francisco after three weeks — possibly to prepare for the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, for which the Infant Incubator Company had already secured a concession.

The wire services picked up the story under headlines such as “DOCTOR WEDS; DIES NEXT DAY,” and it appeared in newspapers across the country. Fischel’s estate was estimated at $100,000 (approximately $3 million in current value). In May 1914, the New York Times reported that “all the right, title and interest of the estate of Solomon Fischel, deceased, in and to any share or shares of the capital stock of the Infant Incubator Company” were sold at auction for $2,500 — a small fraction of the likely value of his stake. The administratrix — presumably the widow, who had been married to Fischel for barely ten hours — did not know the number of shares or the nature of the interest she was selling.

After Fischel’s death, Couney continued to operate the Infant Incubator Company’s exhibits for another three decades, including at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 and the New York World’s Fair in 1939–1940. Fischel’s role in the enterprise was largely forgotten, and the standard historiography of the incubator exhibition movement — shaped by William Silverman’s 1979 article in Pediatrics, Dawn Raffel’s The Strange Case of Dr. Couney (2018), and Claire Prentice’s Miracle at Coney Island — has treated him as a minor figure in Couney’s story rather than as a co-equal partner.

Books

  1. Raffel, Dawn. The Strange Case of Dr. Couney: How a Mysterious European Showman Saved Thousands of American Babies. Blue Rider Press, 2018. ISBN 978-0399175749.
  2. Prentice, Claire. Miracle at Coney Island: How a Sideshow Doctor Saved Thousands of Babies and Transformed American Medicine. 2016.

Medical Journals

  1. Silverman, William A. “Incubator-Baby Side Shows.” Pediatrics 64, no. 2 (August 1979): 127–141.
  2. “Recent Deaths: Dr. Solomon Fischel.” Boston Medical and Surgical Journal (October 30, 1913).

Newspaper Articles — Fischel Biographical

  1. “Dr. Fishel, Inventor of Baby Incubator, Weds and Dies.” New York Times, October 20, 1913.
  2. “Quails Are His Forte: Dr. Fischel of Vienna Wagers He Can Eat a Quail a Day for 30 Successive Days.” Buffalo Courier, December 20, 1901.

Newspaper Articles — Exhibitions, Business, and Marketing

  • “Baby Incubator Trouble: One of the Partners Not Satisfied With Division of Profits.” Lowell Daily Courier, November 8, 1901. (Wire story datelined New York, November 7.)
  • “Baby Incubators, complete installations as operated by us, for sale to hospitals and amusement parks.” The Billboard, May 1, 1909. (Advertisement listing Dr. S. Fischel as contact, Infant Incubator Company at Dreamland.)
  • Fischel, S. “What Becomes of the Incubator Babies.” San Francisco Examiner, September 11, 1910. (Hearst syndicated feature, copyright 1910 American-Examiner.) Also appeared in: Kansas City Post, September 4, 1910; Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA), September 11, 1910.
  • “Saving the Baby’s Life: How Incubation Has Reduced the Ravages of Early Birth.” Kansas City Star, August 28, 1910. (Interview with Dr. S. Fischel.)
  • “Incubator Baby Becomes Expo President in 1944: Eight Flickering Lives Being Fanned Into Health on Goose Island.” Kentucky Post, September 8, 1910. (Ohio Valley Exposition, Cincinnati. Interview with Dr. S. Fischel.)
  • [Auction of Fischel estate interest in Infant Incubator Company.] New York Times, May 15, 1914.

Newspaper Articles — Incubator Baby Reunion (1904)

Newspaper Articles — Dreamland Fire (1911)

  • “Coney Island Fire Ruins Dreamland; Loss $4,000,000.” Brooklyn Daily Times, May 27, 1911.

Web Sources (not including this web site)

Last Updated on 04/22/26