Great Medical Discoveries: The Work of Gwyn Macfarlane

That haemophilia is no longer a death sentence and can be successfully treated is due in great part to the ingenuity and devotion of physicians and scientists in Oxford.

Thanks to pioneering work carried out by Gwyn Macfarlane (1907--87) and other colleagues at the
Medical Research Council's Blood Coagulation Unit at the Churchill Hospital, it is now known there are two forms of haemophilia -- haemophilia A (factor VIII deficiency) and haemophilia B (factor IX deficiency) -- and that it is caused by an inherited recessive X chromosome disorder, and consequently almost exclusively restricted to men.

For more than 800 years Oxford has made a remarkable contribution to the art and science of medicine. Scientists, philosophers and physicians have made the city an outstanding scientific centre from the medieval period onwards. These videos tell the story of Oxford's place in the history of medicine from the medieval period to its current position at the forefront of medical research and clinical practice.