Final answer:
George Huntington first described Huntington's disease, a degenerative genetic disorder with autosomal dominant inheritance, meaning there is a 50% chance of passing it to offspring.
Step-by-step explanation:
Huntington's disease was first described by the physician George Huntington in 1872. It is a genetic disorder that leads to the wasting away of the nervous system, and it is caused by a mutation in the gene that encodes the huntington protein. This mutation results in the production of an abnormal protein with a longer-than-normal sequence of glutamine residues. The inheritance of Huntington's disease follows an autosomal dominant pattern, which means if a parent has the Huntington allele, there is a 50 percent chance that they will pass the disorder to their offspring. This is demonstrated using a simple Punnett square.