1 Department of Pediatrics, Medical University, Szeged, Hungary
Two articles published in your Journal have stated that the physiologic icterus of premature American Negro newborns is milder (Holman, G. H.: Pediatrics, 22:115, 1958), and the jaundice in full-term healthy Chinese and Malay infants is more severe than in premature and full-term healthy infants of the white population living in the same geographic area (Brown, W. R., and Wong Hock Boon: Pediatrics, 36:745, 1965). The authors suppose that ethnic differences observed in the physiologic icterus can be first of all explained by genetic and racial factors.