Young boy stricken with Hodgkin's Disease. Atlas of Clinical Medicine, 1892. Hodgkin's Disease is a type of cancer (neoplastic disease) characterized by progressive chronic inflammation and enlargement of the lymph nodes of the neck, armpit, groin, and mesentery, by enlargement of the spleen and occasionally of the liver and the kidneys, and by lymphoid infiltration along the blood vessels. The disease is most common in teenagers and young adults. Hodgkin's disease is named after its identifier, English pathologist Thomas Hodgkin (1798-1866).