Adison's disease (also known as chronic adrenal insufficiency, hypocortisolism or hypocorticism) is a rare endocrine disorder in which the adrenal gland produces insufficient amounts of steroid hormones (glucocorticoids and often mineralocorticoids). It may develop in children as well as adults, and may occur as the result of a large number of underlying causes. The condition is named after Dr Thomas Addison, the British physician who first described the condition in his 1855 On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules. The adjective "Addisonian" is used for features of the condition, as well as patients with Addison's disease.