Not Kala-azar

George Mosher, 14, "kala-azar victim" (TIME, July 1), died last week. Ten blood transfusions, the interest of the Rockefeller Institute and the New York Health Department, the hard work of his hospital doctors, all were useless. Autopsists sought for the rare Asian microbe of kala-azar (tropical black fever) supposed to have killed him. But no organism was found. The verdict: he died of an unusual anemia, called idiopathic aplastic (self-forming, non-tissue-building).