Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
A description is made of a large Brazilian family of white ancestry in which some individuals presented polydactyly, other spherocytosis, and some both anomalies together. The information obtained involves five generations totaling 117 related members. Seventy eight of them were examined by the authors through clinical and laboratory methods. Both anomalies were found to be inherited by means of autosomic dominant genes; their joint occurrence seems to be casual. No genetic linkage was apparent between the genes which conditioned spherocytosis and those responsible for the ABO, MN and Rh blood group systems.