STUDIES ON THE UNDERNOURISHED CHILD: XII. Anemia in Malnourished Children

SINCE Galesesio and Slantineano, in 1909, reported moderate anemia in patients affected with pellagra,1 the great majority of authors who have studied this problem agree on the presence of anemia in persons suffering from malnutrition. From the morphologic point of view, anemias have been reported as macrocytic, microcytic, and dimorphic, and, in relation with infantile malnutrition, the morphologic type most frequently found has been the normochromic normocytic.2Morphologic classification of anemias, as determined by measurement of factors such as the mean corpuscular volume, the mean corpuscular hemoglobin, and the mean corpuscular concentration of hemoglobin and by the examination of blood slides, has a great value, especially in the study and nature of erythropoiesis, but such morphologic classification is of less importance in the investigation of the etiologic and pathologic factors involved in the production of anemias.From a review of works on anemias in undernourished children, two clear