Incubation Chamber

Lore & Background

The earliest incubators were invented thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt and China, where they were used to keep chicken eggs warm. These were essentially large rooms heated by fires, with attendants turning eggs at regular intervals to ensure even heat distribution. In the 16th century, Jean Baptiste Porta drew on ancient Egyptian design to create a more modern egg incubator, though he had to discontinue his work due to the Spanish Inquisition. Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur took up the challenge in the middle of the 17th century, warming his incubator with a wood stove and monitoring temperature using the Reaumur thermometer. In the 19th century, researchers began using incubators for medical advancements, creating simple bell jar incubators containing a single lit candle. The first infant incubator, used at a women's hospital in Paris, was heated by kerosene lamps. Fifty years later, Julius H. Hess, an American physician often considered the father of neonatology, designed an electric infant incubator that closely resembles those in use today.

In Their Own Story

In the 1960s, the CO2 incubator was introduced to the market when doctors realized they could use it to identify and study pathogens found in patients' bodily fluids. A sample was harvested, placed onto a sterile dish, and into the incubator. The air was kept at 37 degrees Celsius, the same temperature as the human body, and the incubator maintained the atmospheric carbon dioxide and nitrogen levels necessary to promote cell growth. At this time, incubators also began to be used in genetic engineering, allowing scientists to create biologically essential proteins such as insulin. Genetic modification could now take place on a molecular level, helping to improve the nutritional content and resistance to pestilence and disease of fruits and vegetables.

Reader's Guide

Incubators generally maintain a constant temperature, but additional features are often built in. Many incubators also control humidity. Shaking incubators incorporate movement to mix cultures. Gas incubators regulate the internal gas composition. Some incubators have a means of circulating the air inside to ensure even distribution of temperatures. Many incubators built for laboratory use have a redundant power source to ensure that power outages do not disrupt experiments. Incubators are made in a variety of sizes, from tabletop models to warm rooms, which serve as incubators for large numbers of samples. For mammalian cell cultivation, relative humidity is typically >80% to prevent evaporation, and a slightly acidic pH is achieved by maintaining a CO2 level of 5%.

Did You Know?

• The earliest incubators were used in ancient Egypt and China thousands of years ago to hatch chicken eggs, freeing hens to lay more eggs in a shorter period.
• Rene-Antoine Ferchault de Reaumur invented the Reaumur thermometer specifically to monitor the temperature of his wood-stove-heated incubator in the 17th century.
• The first infant incubator, used at a women's hospital in Paris, was heated by kerosene lamps.
• The CO2 incubator was introduced to the market in the 1960s, enabling doctors to identify pathogens in patients' bodily fluids by maintaining 37°C and specific CO2 and nitrogen levels.
• Incubators are used in genetic engineering to create biologically essential proteins such as insulin.