Baby-fight

Chicago's able Commissioner of Health Arnold Henry Kegel is as eager a publicist as was his able predecessor Herman Niels Bundesen,* but neither so practiced nor so blatant. Last week he took up the Bamberger and Watkins baby mixup (TIME, July 28).

With great ado he summoned the four parents and their disputed infants before a "court." Benched together were a criminologist, an anthropologist, a dermatologist, an ophthalmologist, a psychiatrist, an obstetrician, a pediatrist, a pathologist. The scientists inspected parents and progeny minutely. Mr. Watkins, a traffic-manager, scrutinized the boy whom the Bambergers' possessed, suddenly cried: "His hair is turning red. He's mine. My baby by my first wife has red hair." The "court" ordered him to hush, retired for the day to write out their individual decisions.

Next morning the two fathers entered the "courtroom." Reporters tried to follow. Commissioner Kegel excluded them, explained: "This is going to be a hot fight. Remarks might be passed which would make monkeys out of all of us. So you newspaper boys had better stay out."

By and by Mr. Bamberger, a bricklayer, yanked the door open, rushed wide-eyed away. Reporters dashed through the open door, heard the majority of the scientists declare that the babies had been properly labeled at the lying-in hospital/- but somehow switched as the mothers returned to their homes. The decision pleased Mr. Watkins. It was just what he had been saying.

Thereupon Dr. Kegel led a motorcade of reporters to the Bamberger home. But the Bambergers and the infant had just motored away with Mr. Bamberger announcing. "My wife is hysterical. I'm going crazy. I'm sick of this science business. I had it out with Kegel before the conference, and told him nobody is going to take away my baby. My wife knows it's our baby and I guess a mother's instinct is as good as the experts, who contradict themselves. . , . That Kegel, making us pose for the movies and talkies and news reels! I'm sick of it all!"

Dr. Kegel looked disappointed, said he: "I'm not a detective. I can't go after him because I haven't the authority. As a matter of fact I have been informed that Mr. Bamberger's lawyer told him to shoot me as a trespasser if I crossed his doorstep."

When Mr. Watkins learned of the Bamberger disappearance, he exclaimed with rage: "I'll sue Bamberger for a writ of habeas corpus! I'll sue the hospital for damages! Talk about Bamberger's wife being hysterical! Here's Bamberger chasing around in the hot sun with my baby, and my wife sitting at home nursing his baby!"

That evening the Bambergers' attorney located the Watkins, brought them and his clients to a secret conference with six physicians. Each mother was certain she possessed her own child. Mr. Bamberger agreed. But Mr. Watkins continued dubious and pugnacious. He quieted down when the hospital doctors persuaded him to study the egg-shaped head of the baby his wife held and the round head of the baby in Mrs. Bamberger's lap. They explained : Mrs. Watkins' baby was her first, Mrs. Bamberger's her third. First babies usually have warped heads because they must force their way through the bony unused birth canal. In a few weeks the soft head of a first baby assumes its hereditary shape.

Mr. Watkins was temporarily convinced. Said he: "My only consolation is that several relatives have said the little tyke looks like me."

Dr. Kegel: "I am astonished at the attitude of the parents. Science has shown the babies were switched!"

But the controversy was not ended. Neither baby had been named. Mr. Bamberger (Roman Catholic) had his baptized Charles Edward while Mr. Watkins chased about trying to stop him, talking about the Law.

Dr. Kegel, to his office force: Take the birth records out of the files and don't put them back until the controversy is ended and the signatures of all four parents are included.

Hence, so far as the law is concerned, neither of the babies has yet been born.

*Now Coroner of Cook County. Ill.

/- In attempting to prevent baby confusion, maternity hospitals write the baby's family name on a piece of adhesive tape and fix it to the infant's body; or fasten a string of lettered beads or stamped metal tag to the child's neck and mother's wrist; or both. Registering a newborn's foot prints is not very reliable, because foot prints are not distinctive for some time after birth. Newborn children clench their fists so tightly that finger prints cannot be made. Dr. Kegel last week suggested a novel idea: stencil the infant's foot in suntan from an ultraviolet lamp.

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