MOST AUTHORS still underestimate the role of the liver and of the reticuloendothelial system in the genesis of the various pathologic conditions that appear during the first week of extrauterine life. The variations in the degree of maturity of the hepatic functions in the newborn infant as evidenced in the chemistry of the cord blood might furnish some explanation of various so-called physiologic or undisputedly pathologic manifestations in such an infant like those grouped together under the name of hemolytic disease of the newborn.
The object of our study was to determine the degree of maturity of the liver of newborn infants by studying the chemistry of the cord blood by various methods. In an additional series of cases, we compared (1) the results of our tests made on the blood of the mothers with those made on the cord blood and (2) with those made on the blood of