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Frederick Akbar Mahomed
‐
Pioneering medical researcher and the grandson of shampooing surgeon Sake Dean Mahomed
Other names
Frederick Mahomed
Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed
Place of birth
Location(s)
SE1 9RT
United Kingdom Black Lion Street
Brighton
BN1 1ND
United Kingdom
Place of death
London
About
Frederick Akbar Mahomed was the grandson of Sake Dean Mahomed, the shampooing surgeon of Brighton. He was a pioneer of clinical medical research, especially in the field of blood pressure.
Mahomed was born in Brighton and studied medicine at Sussex County Hospital and Guy's Hospital, London. In 1872 he qualified as Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS), and he married Ellen Clark in 1873. Following jobs in Highgate, Islington and Paddington, he was appointed resident medical registrar at Guy's in 1877. He also qualified for a Bachelor of Medicine from Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge and was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1880.
Mahomed modified the sphygmograph to measure blood pressure and was the first person in Britain to recognize that high blood pressure was a primary condition of kidney damage (and not the other way round). He was also the instigator of a record of clinical, hereditary and anthropological features of disease known as the Collective Investigation Record. He died of typhoid aged 35, and to help his wife and five children a subscription was set up at St Mary's and Guy's by his medical colleagues.
'Chronic Bright's Disease without Albuminuria', Guy's Hospital Reports 25 (1881), pp. 295–416
Cameron, J. Stewart and Hicks, J., 'Frederick Akbar Mahomed and His Role in the Description of Hypertension at Guy's Hospital', Kidney International 49 (1996), pp. 1491–3
Moore, Norman, ‘Mahomed, Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar (1849–1884)’, rev. Rachel E. Davies, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/17797]
Shaw, A. Batty, 'Frederick Akbar Mahomed and His Contribution to the Study of Bright's Disease', Guy's Hospital Reports 101.1-4 (1952), pp. 159–60
Swales, J. D., 'Frederick Akbar Mahomed (1849–1884) Pioneer of Clinical Research', Journal of Human Hypertension 10 (1996), pp. 139–40
Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto Press, 2002)
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Image credit
Portrait of Frederick Akbar Mahomed, 1884, Guy's Medical School Records, Catalogue No. G/PH/1/1, Copyright Kings College London Archives
