The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, December 21, 1902, Page 11

¥ you thInK this woria Is not & gooq old fashioned world still, with a lot 1 of homely &1d notions about things in general and bables in particular, Just linger awhile near the “baby Incubators” at the Chutes and listen to the surprising exclamations that are evoked by the first sight of the tiny human con- tents thereof, There are three of these new fangled creations of medical sclence to save the wee flickering lives of infants who have feome Into the world prematurely and each t:f these 0dd machines contains a passive ttle mortal, which no mother could ever Tescue from an early grave by any other means, but it is an astonishing fact that a2alf of those who pay their good money z0 see the Incubators do so with the firm conviction that it is some new sort of game gotten up by the Chutes manage- metn solely for their amusement. For the firet few minutes after entering it is hard to convince them that the babies are real- iy alive and not mere automatons. They simply stand and stare with incredulous eyes and then begin to ask questions. And those in quest of information are not all women by any matter of means as might be supposed. So if you want to leara something about human nature that is “he time to listen. “Why, they're wax,” one woman cried on first beholding them. “No, they ein’t!” her companion an- swered after a few moments’' awesome scrutiny of the pink elderdown bundle sehind the glass door of the incubator. “They’re alive. See that one move.” [ “yWell, 4id you ever. Why, it's crying.” *“Poor little thing.” “Oh, I think it's simply terrible.” “Boy or girl?” This last question to W. G. Rollins, who with Dr. F. D. Coyle and a staff of three trained nurses, has charge of the curlous scientific display. “Girl,” he answered. “How much does she weight” “At birth its weight was only two pounds end nine ounces,” he explained; “but since its mother brought it here it has gained rapldly.” “Only, two pounds and nine ounces! Graclous! Isn’t it awful?” And the two women gazed at each other in growing amazement. “Was it born &t the Chutes?” the first speaker finally ventured after what was (to them) an awkward pause. “No, madam, as you can readily appre- clate, we are not at liberty to give any information concerning their parentage. These bables are only entrusted to our care because otherwise they are too weak to live. But some day this baby girl can claim the proud distinction of being a native daughter.” “Really,” and the eyes opened in great- er astonishment. “Why, I thought they 'were all brought from Paris.” *“No, madam, only the incubators come trom Paris.” — In to-day’s issue of The Sundey Call appears the sec- ond installment of “The Gos- pel of Judas Iscariot,” by Aaron Dwight Baldwin—a novel that is proving the sen- “What! Doesn’t & baby come with,each one?” The sflence that followed Mr. Rollins’ polite negative was more awesome than ever, but finally the inherent curlosity of the sex triumphed again and the ques- tions went on as before. “What do you feed them.” “Albumen water and conllensed milk every two hours, day and night, just as in the case of the ordinary home child,” answered Mr. Rollins, “Did you ever?” Both women watched the still little ob- Jects with bated breath for some mo- ments and then: “Do they sleep all the time?” “Yes, nearly all the time, except when\ ye have to wake them to feed them.” ' “Do you really do that?” with a note of dismay. “Yes, madam. They must be well nour- ished.” “Poor little things.” And then with en- forced cheerfulness, “Just look at this one over here.” “Isn’t it cunning?’ =N I [ SrialiEST (BABY TN THE [ \WORLD WITH | ADROPPER." \ “Perfectly dear. Does it cry much?™ “Not as much as the home child, ma. dam.” “Who walks the floor with- them?" broke in a wag behind them. Both wo- men turned an indignant glance upon the would-be humorist, but Mr. Rollins only smiled the weary smile of 2 man to whom the question is not new. Before he could have replied even if he would a pompous old woman elbowed her way into the group. “A brooder. Well, I declare! Raising bables like chickens. Who'd & thought it?” And she laughed the big, good- natured laugh of one to whom all things are what they seem at first glance and who always resents baving thelr illusions spoiled. “I didn't know before that they could hatch bables in a box like that. Oh, them doctors, them doctors.” And she chuckled unctuously as she tried to at- tract the baby’s attention. “What do the bables do in there?” asked the first woman, indicating the glass inclosure, where the smallest child in the world, having been generously fed, was now reposing so peacefully. “Nothing, madam. Just sleep and eat and grow fat on medicated hot air.” ‘Medicated hot air!” the women cried, in consternation. *“Well, I never.” ; “The ordinary child, breathing all sorts i1 microbes from the breath of grown-up | people in an ordinary room, has no pro- tection whatever from maladies of all sorts; but with the incubator baby it is different. The incubator, being simply a room within a room, every precaution can be and is taken to prevent the child's system from absorbing these impurities through the breathing apparatus. Hence ‘the beneficial and far-reaching effects of the medicated hot alr. “Therefore these incubator babies do not breathe the air of this room, which, crowded as-it Is from early morning”till late at night, would be worse than crime ‘inal. Instead they are constantly supplied with fresh air from the outside.” “How?” asked the wag, grown ludd%nly ud seriously inquisitive. “Through this pipe, which you see on the left,” answered Mr. Rollins, Indicat- ‘\ng what looked like a length of polished tovepipe. “But this air is not admitted In its or- dinary state,” he went on, “for even fresh air, laden as it may be with impuri- PHOTO O BYLUSHNE L Ities, wol{ld have a very bad effect on children so frail as these. “Instead it is passed through this small square box, which is filled with absorbent cotton, and then on through a similar box just inside the incubator, beneath the shelf on which the baby’s bed is made, which shelf, by the way, can be raised or lowered at will just like the movable grating in the oven of an ordinary kitch- en stove. This second box is filled with other chemicals to render the air absc- lutely pure before it ascends to the child through the grating beneath its couch, and passes on out through the chimney pipe at the top, which, as you see, Is of glass fitted with a little delicately adjust- ed buzzer, *that twirls fast or slow ac- cording to the strength of the air cur- rent.” “Isn’t it wonderful! How did you ever think of such a thing?” asked the pom- pous old lady eying Mr. Rollins admir- "Ingly. “The air having been properly medi- cated,” went on Mr. Rollins, ignoring the Iinterruption, “is then heated to the pro- per temperature. We place the newly born child In a temperature of % degrees Fakrenheit and gradually decrease this ithrough a period of three months to 5 top of the machine, which in turn open. ates upon the small apparatus on the right hand side, designed particularly to regulate the flame of the lamp, causing it to be gradually reduced—thus"—suiting action to the word by pressing a smal. button, which shut off the draught o the flame—“and so lowers the temperature of the chamber to the proper degree again. “But, however, the humiaity o this miniatiure bedroom is of as great impor- tance as the maintenance of the proper Cegree of heat. When the alr does not register a. sufficient amount of moisture that little device which you can see on the back wall there above the baby's head—" ‘““That thing with a face like a clock?'! asked the pompous woman puffing with her effort to stoop low enough in the nar- row confines of the closely packed crowd to see the instrument indicated. “Yes, that thing with the clock-like face —the hydrometer, it is called—corrects the atmosphere by the admission of a certain amount of damp air from this little tank of the same temperature as that alread in the chamber and automatically shu the damp air off again when the supply of moisture is sufficient.” ~Did you ever!” exclaimed the first two women in unison. “Thus we not only secure unto our in- fant charges every sanitary condition that has been devised by human ingenuity up to the present time, but as they lie there snug and warm In the medicated hot air the glass sides of the incubators shut out all sound and everything is as quiet in their tiny bedrooms as if they were miles away frém everything and everybody. His further discourse was {nterrupte & piping wall from the depths of the ir cubator at the end of the room and a trim Httle nurse, with a calm profes- sfonal air, came in on the instant, bearing in her hand a curious glass tube about. as thick as a lead pencil, having at one end a small rubber bulb. “This baby is so small and so delicate that it has to be fed through the nostrils, not more than half a teaspoonfull of milR at each meal—one drop at a time,” ex- plained Mr. Rollins, when the nurse took the baby into her arms. “Oh, ain’t it awful,” chorused the woemen in surprise, not unmixed with anguish, but it was noted that the baby' fell into a sound slumber agaln as soon as it had received its meal, drop by drop, frcm the glass “dropper’” held to its shell- like nostril by the steady hand of the nurse. “Don’t think they’ll ever raise them.” s2id the first woman In a stage whispar to her companion, as they moved toward the door. “Wonder what the mother thinks?" the other ruminated as doubtfully. The pompous woman was not troubled by any vague misgivings, however. “Do you sell the babies?" she demanded with the air of a woman of means at s doll' show. And so they left her trying to effect the purchase of a “medicated baby" as she called them from the patient but obdu- rate Mr. Rollins. “Them doctors do beat the old Nick himself,” she finally remarked, “sure they have bables and bables and ro mothers at all—at all.” And that seems to be the general opinion, 'l"““\ -3 In to-day’s issue of The Sunday Call appears the sec- ond installment of “The Gos- pel of Judas Iscariof,” by Aaron Dwight Baldwin—a novel that is proving the sen- sation of two continents, And then they crowded eagerly forward Tih L TAKING THELT PER. ficgrees, which Is the normal temperature. sation of two con: This book will be published while Mr. Rollins proceeded to elucidate. 4 oF TH<E‘.‘ HOT'A?E ~N 2 ‘Then tests are made to see if the child This book will ;:n:::hh'd I\ ehires 1 o “The particular and pecullar advantage ; INCUBATOR, can stand that temperature before It Is complets in " three issuss of : bies in an incubator—in fact, > sent back to its parents, and its place The Sunday Call’s Magazine oL Talsing ba . pEptbeck o » . Ly The Sunday Call’'s Magazine the sole reason—is that it reduces the v 2 . y s b i ks : In the incubator filled with another baby. Secticn D B 14, 21 Section — December 14, 21 nursery to a very small compass, enabling “It is easy to see therefore that the tem- and 28. BE SURE TO READ IT. IT IS THE NOVEL OF THE HOUR. Our next novel will be “When Enighthood Weas in Flower,” by Charles Mafjor, {llustrated by photographs of scenes in Julia Marlowe’s play of the same name. i the attendants to keep it at 2 more even temperature than they could a room of this size, for instance. In short, these incubators are nothing more nor less than minlature nurseries, each complete 1tself. “The incubator protects the child from microbes, colds and draughts, and ‘more particularly . from the many atmospherio impurities, which have but little or no ef- fect upbn adults, but which at this stage of a child’s development are nearly al- ways fatal. perature, next to the absolute purity of the medicated alr itself, is one of the ost important and interesting features and 28. BE SURE TO READ IT. IT IS THE NOVEL OF of this machine. ' THE HOUR. “As you may observe, the air is heated by the spirit lamp at the rzflfl of the in- cubator while it passes through the ma- rchine. . Just inside here, above the baby’'s nead, you may note a Mttle cofl of metal. That is called a micrometer, and when the chamber gets too hot, that coil expands pnd 1o expanding ovens the valve at the Our next novel will be “When Enighthood Was in Flower,” by Charles Major, illustrated by photographs of scenes . in Julia Marlowe’s . Play of the same name. —