christmas disease

Christmas disease   n.  A type of hemophilia that is caused by a deficiency of factor IX. [After Stephen Christmas, a 20th-century British boy who was first diagnosed with it.]

Main Entry: Christ·mas disease
Pronunciation: 'kris-m&s-
Function: noun
: a hereditary sex-linked hemorrhagic disease involving absence of acoagulation factor in the blood and failure of the clotting mechanism called also hemophilia B; —compare HEMOPHILIA
Christmas, Stephen, British child patient. Christmas was the youngest of seven patients in a study at an Oxford, England, hospital undertaken byRosemary Biggs and her associates of a newly discovered condition resembling hemophilia. Christmas was the first patient examined in detail, and the disease was named after him. In 1952, Biggs and herassociates published their first article on Christmas disease.

Christmas disease Christ·mas disease (krĭs'məs)
n.
See hemophilia B.