Hemophilia, a clinical chimera for many a bleeding problem, is too rare a condition to cover so many hemorrhagic disturbances, is too hereditary a disease to include so many mature bleeders, is too well defined a disease entity to become a haphazard label of hemorrhagic confusion. A solitary hemorrhage for the first time requires that every local cause be excluded before a diagnosis of hemophilia is ventured. Profuse hemorrhage at birth1 is varied in origin unless inheritance makes hemophilia a consideration. A prolonged clotting time alone is never pathognomonic of hemophilia. Such common correlations with hemophilia have confused the literature to such an extent that Bulloch and Fildes2 of the London Eugenic Laboratory have been able to authenticate only 44 hemophilic families of 273 reported in a century of literature.
Hemophilia is of primary concern to the pediatrician, because it first becomes manifest at about the first year