Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Christmas Disease

  • From eponym to advocate: The story of Stephen Christmas

    Peter Kopplin Toronto, Canada The 1952 Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) had an unusual but fitting article. It was titled “Christmas Disease, a condition previously mistaken for haemophilia.”1 The seminal patient was five-year-old Stephen Christmas and the title suggested an unusual lack of British reserve. Rosemary Biggs and colleagues were giving the…