The clinicopathological features of 25 children who died with protein-calorie malnutrition were studied. All but four subjects were found at necropsy to have nutritional thymectomy and all but 3 died of infectious diseases. The infectious agents were chiefly intracellular micro-organisms including miliary tuberculosis, Herpes simplex, varicella, measles, Pneumocystis carinii, and Plasmodium fal...