The records of 192 post-mortem examinations of children who died during 1966-67 at Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda, gave details of age, sex, diagnosis, body weight and thymus weight. The children were classified as premature, neonates, and in age-groups 1-12 months and 1-5 years. The post-neonatal age-groups were subdivided into 3 groups according to postmortem diagnosis-kwashiorkor, marasmus and non-malnourished. The data are tabulated and compared with thymus weights recorded by BOYD (Am. J. Dis. Child., 1932, v. 43, 1162) from European children Who had died suddenly.

The Uganda neonates had thymus weights (mean 12 g) similar to those of Europeans. The mean weight in 75 non-malnourished Ugandans (9-22 g) was smaller than that of the Europeans (20-28 g) tout in 9 Ugandan children who died a sudden death the weight (39 g)/was at the upper limit of Boyd's range for sudden death. The thymus weights in 26 children with marasmus (2.7-3.7 g) and 32 with kwashiorkor (2.7-2.9 g) were very low and there were low thymus: body-weight ratios. Microscopically, the thymus in kwashiorkor showed gross atrophy, and it is possible that this" auto thymectomy" may be related to alterations in antibody response and a low grade response to the Heaf test in malnourished children with tuberculosis. TP Eddy.