To hematologists the neonatal period is full of challenges, pitfalls, and mysteries. Not only do more problems related to blood occur during this brief interval than at any other time throughout life (cf, the differential diagnosis of anemia of the newborn), but the physician must consider whether the observed disease represents the consequences of an inherited disorder, or of fetal-maternal interaction, or is due to an illness in the infant himself. This decision must be made at a time when normal hematologic processes are in a state of rapid change and thereby complicate the diagnostic process.
Perhaps because of such complexity, it was not until recently that answers were found to many of the hematologic puzzles of the newborn. The only reasonably comprehensive book on the subject in the English language was the first edition of the present volume, published in 1966. It met with an enthusiastic response, obviously filling