Frederick Akbar Mahomed

Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed was born on 11 April 1849 in Brighton, England. He was the grandson of Sake Dean Mahomed, a pioneering Indian traveller and entrepreneur. Mahomed studied medicine at Guy's Hospital, London, where he won a prize for his work on the sphygmograph. He qualified as a physician and worked in various London hospitals, including the London Fever Hospital and Guy's Hospital. His major contribution was in the study of hypertension. Using a modified sphygmograph, he measured arterial blood pressure and described what is now known as essential hypertension, differentiating it from secondary hypertension related to kidney disease. He observed that elevated blood pressure could precede kidney damage and described the pathological effects of chronic hypertension, such as cardiac hypertrophy and arterial thickening. Mahomed also initiated the concept of Collective Investigation within the British Medical Association, a precursor to modern collaborative clinical trials, encouraging systematic documentation of disease and family histories. He married twice, first to Ellen Chalk, with whom he had two children, and then to Ada Chalk, with whom he had three children. He died prematurely at the age of 35 in 1884 from typhoid fever, leaving behind a significant legacy in the understanding of cardiovascular disease.