The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-09-02
INFANT INCUBAToRs.

A Successful Machine for Raising
 Weakly British Babies.
 At the Victorian Era Exhibition at Eariscourt recently novel treatment of prematurely born and weakly infants was opened to private inspection. The situation of the model institution, which Is of considerable dimensions, having sixty-foot frontage and a correspond ing breadth of twenty five, is in the line of buildings in the western gardens opposite the old Welcome club. It Is conveniently divided into three sections. In the central one are the handsome nickel-plated and plate-glass incubators in which the infants are placed, neatly wrapped In cotton wool and laid on lit- tie white coverlets. One wing of the building, which Is built of brick, is ar- ranged as a model nursery, while the other Is used for the offices of the nurses and medical men in charge. The most important considera tions in the vitality of premature infants are weight and temperature, and on these features depent entirely the chances of saving their lives. As general fact, infants weighing less than two pounds three ounces die on the day of their birth. Of those under three pounds five ounces, half are saved by the Alt man apparatus. In the primitive meth ods of years ago the puny babies were wrapped in wadding or in a sheepskin with the wool adhering. In some coun- tries they were put in jars of feathers or the cradle was drawn close to the hearth. Mir. Turnier's couveuses have done good service at the Paris Mater nity hospital, and other apparatus has been usefully employed to a limited ex- tent; but nothing so regular and uni- form, so pure and wholesome in it's operation, has been heretofore devised,
 The new apparatus was explained to the audience by Professor Coney of Heidelburg, it's paramount qualification being the automatic maintenance of a uniform temperature. The incubator is a metal and glass case under a cubic yard in capacity. The front portion is formed by two swinging doors. The child rests on the coverlet of a fine wire hammock suspended from the four cor ners. The air is supplied through pipe four inches in diameter connected to an air box and before entering it is made HIOlSL Uy passing through d SHldll sheet of antiseptic absorbent wool, which retains the soot and other impurities of the atmosphere. From this filter the air traverses another pipe leading to | the center of the incubator Over it's orifioe is placed disk for uniformly distributing the air, and above all is a | three-foot chimney with horizontal revolving fan, which compels the ex- | hausted air to escape. The uniform | heating of the case is produced by hot | water drawn from an external boiler, | heated by paraffin, gas, or electricity, | the circulation being effected by cop | per wire running beneath the wire ham,
 mock. In the right-hand wall is fixed
 a thermostat connected to light chain which suspends an aluminium cone lid
 over the lamp of the boiler, and it's ex- pansions and contractions automatical- | ly control the temperature to the de-
 gree to which the apparatus is set. A l thermometer suspended inside one of
 the glass doors renders possible obser-
 vations of the temperature of the in-