Materials and Methods We investigated 23 severelymalnourished children suffering from purpura who were admitted to our wards over a period of nine months.-All suffered from severe malnutrition with evidence of nutritional oedema or acute nutritional dermatosis or both. The following investigations were carried out in all cases: the bleeding-time was determined by Duke's method and the clotting-time by the method of Lee and White; haemoglobin estimation, prothrombin index (Quick one-stage method), and bile and broth cultures were performed, using venous blood; all patients were subjected to tuberculin-testing with second-strength purified protein derivative, and their chests were radiographed.; rectaL swabs were taken and cultured for