Jaundice is a condition in which a person's skin and the whites of the eyes are discolored yellow due to an increased level of bile pigments in the blood resulting from liver disease. Jaundice is sometimes called icterus, from a Greek word for the condition.aundice is not a disease; it is a symptom of a number of different diseases and disorders of the liver and gallbladder and of hemolytic blood disorders. One such disorder is the presence of a gallstone in the common bile duct, which carries bile from the liver to the intestine.