The largest historical piece on display in the archive collection of the AAP Pediatric History Center is a symbol of the care of the smallest babies: the Hess bed incubator.
Designed by Chicago pediatrician Julius H. Hess, M.D., FAAP (1876-1955), the incubator was an electrically heated water-jacketed infant bed offering temperature and humidity control for premature infants. Water circulated between the inner and outer walls of the metallic box.
But that oversized artifact may not have been the inventor’s most important contribution to neonatology.
While the bed kept babies warm and protected, the metal, industrial-looking device “was never a great success” — at least outside of the former Michael Reese Hospital in Chicago where Dr. Hess worked, according to Lawrence Gartner, M.D., FAAP, a member of the AAP Historical Archives Advisory Committee. The nurses and doctors couldn’t see the babies through the incubator and had to bend over to tend...
