St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1891-05-04
INCUBATOR WOULDN'T DO.
Baby Margaret johnson Follows
Her Mother Out ofThis World.

Baby Margaret johnson Follows
Her Mother Out ofThis World.
The average baby weighs seven
pounds at birth, and many babies weigh
ten, affirmS the New York Evening Sun.
When Miss Margaret Johnson came to
be weighed on Dec. 81, in the family of
the janitor of a West side tenement
house, the scales registered only three
pounds. Margaret'S mother died foul days
after her Child was born. A friend Of
the mothers tried to encourage Mar
garet to live, but the prospect grew dis
NAL, and she took the child in her arms
and carried it to the babies hospital
at Fifty-fifth street and Lexington ave-
hue. That was on Jan. Il.
The house surgeon at this hospital is
woman. She found that the mites
lungs were in partial collapse, and the
temperature of the piglny body was
only % deg. This condition of affairs
would soon kill even a tWelve-pound
baby.
A genius dear to many a poultry
breeders heart once rugged up an affair
for Matching chickens, and called it an
incubator. 1t worked well for chickens,
and was tried on a few babies who had
come into this world too hastily. Some
times it worked with the babies. In
mediately after Baby Johnson'S arrival
at the hospital an attempt was made
to foster what life remained 10y resort
to an incubator.
The incubator baby" as she became
known, was put in boX-like arrange
ment'in the front of the first floor of the
hospital. Her abode was of wood, three
feet long and as many high. Halfway
down its height on the inside shelf eX
tended horizontally for trifle over two
feet. and upon this were laid long rolls
OF cotton, and, last of all, the baby. A
tin tube which entered at the lower part
of one side brought in heated air. which
passed out at the top, where the glass
cover was raised to permit its escape. In
the incubator besides the baby was
vessel of water to moisten the air, and
the thermometer.
The baby was fed with half ounce
of milk every two hours. This and
being weighed were the only inconven-
fences to which it was at first subjected.
Within a week it had lost three ounces,
but had attained normal temperature
of 80 deg. 1t regained its weight again,
and one day it astonished the white
capped nurse by crying and actually
kicking with its heels at the glass cover
above it.
These were the first manifestations of
energy that it had yet displayed, and
were so natural that its keepers felt
greatly encouraged. 1t blinked its deep
blue eyes at all of the white ceiling that
they could survey, but itnever laughed.
though at times its forehead was con-
tracted in what the nurse declared to be
an effort to smile.
All seemed to go well with the baby,
and it began TO look as if it might live
to read its own history in medical litera-
ture. Then all of sudden on Sunday
it refused to take its food, the quantity
of which had been doubled. and which
was now offered in bottle instead of
spoon. Its wee face looked paler, and
its blue eyes were less bright than be-
fore. Consultations were held, but to
no avail. The person with the most
interest in the case refused absolutely
to take any interest. and yesterday aft
ernoon at 8 80 o'clock she got up and
went away out of the incubator, leaving
her small body behind her.