THE SMALLEST BABY.
TINIEST SPECIMEN OF NORMAL
HUMANITY IN THE WORLD.
IS HAPPY IN AN
INCUBATOR.
TWELVE DAYS OLD AND NOW
WEIGHS TWO POUNDS.
Lung Power Well Developed and Ap-
petite Excellent -- First Baby to
Bless the Thirteen Years'
Married Life of the
Coltons.
GRANDMOTHER OF THE COLTON
BABY AND THE BABY HIMSELF.
In a home-made incubator with a pagoda-like top at 406 White avenue there thrives the smallest baby in Kansas City. His name is Kenneth Crowder Colton and he is 12 days old today. He is believed to be the tiniest specimen of normal humanity in the world. Local medical authorities have searched their memories and can recall no other perfectly formed child so small. The baby weighed a trifle less than one pound eight ounces when he was born.
"But now! Well, just look at him," said the proud mother, Mrs. Ruby H. Colton, yesterday afternoon, as she lifted the pagoda-shaped top of the incubator, covered with warm flannel, and showed the little fellow sleeping peacefully. He was smiling, and occasionally he would crow in his sleep in the happiest way imaginable, unconscious that the very fact of his being alive is considered phenomenal.
"See how big he is! Why, he's getting to be a man already. He's a foot long and weighs two pounds. Think of that! When he was born he was only seven and one-half inches long, and he weighed a pound and a half. At his birth his head was hardly larger than a salt cellar, and now is as big as a tea cup.
"And his hair! It'll soon be long enough to cut. Do you see it? But, of course you do. You can't help it. It's an eighth of an inch long and dark, like his father's. His hands and feet are nearly and inch long each. He's perfectly developed in every way. See how sturdy his arms and legs are getting to be. I do believe you could almost feel his muscle."
Mrs. Colton showed a picture of her son. "Look at this, taken with his grandmother when he was 3 days old," said Mrs. Colton. There he is, wrapped in one of my smallest lace handkerchiefs. Notice how much too big for him it is. And you wouldn't think he could cry very loud. But when he is hungry I can hear him if I am out in the yard and the door is closed. Yes, his lungs are developing splendidly.
The baby's mother is small. She is about five feet four inches tall and weighs 100 pounds. The father, who is a carpenter, is five feet ten inches tall and weighs 150 pounds. This is the first child to be born to Mr. and Mrs. Colton. They have been married thirteen years.
The incubator which is Kenneth's home is made from an inverted kitchen chair, with most of the seat cut out and replaced by sheet iron. The baby lies on blankets over the sheet iron, and beneath it a lamp is kept constantly burning. The chair is wrapped in heavy woolen curtains. A square cover with a pointed top, made of flannel with wooden stays to keep it in shape, fits loosely enough over the top to allow ventilation. There is a large thermometer on the side, and the temperature is kept at 75. Kenneth is fed every three hours.
"He eats enough for a baby twice his size," said Dr. W. H. Crowder, the family physician. "I think there is no doubt he stands as good a chance to live now as any other normal baby."
