“…A possible linkage between the thymic abnormality and the development of autoimmunity in myasthenia gravis has been suggested in the animal model (Yunis et al, 1971) and in man (Simpson, 1960(Simpson, , 1966Adner et al, 1966;Simpson et al, 1976). Recently, abnormal thymic lymphocyte functions of patients with myasthenia gravis were suggested in in vitro tests (Armstrong et al, 1973;Field et al, 1973;Mori and Kawanami, 1973;Goust et al, 1974;Simpson et al, 1976). The purpose of this paper is to report a comprehensive immunological study of myasthenia gravis and to construct a hypothesis that a circulating antibody to thymic cells may have led to the thymic dysfunction and subsequent development of autoimmune phenomena.…”