Dean Mahomed

Sake Dean Mahomed (Bengali: শেখ দীন মুহাম্মদ Shekh Din Muhammôd; Arabic: Shaykh Din Muhammad; Anglicized: Sake Dean Mahomet) (1759–1851) was a Bengali traveller, surgeon and entrepreneur who introduced shampooing and the Indian take-away curry house restaurant in Britain, and was the first Indian to have written a book in the English language. He was also one of the earliest notable British Bengalis.

Early life

Sake Dean Mahomed grew up in the Bengal region of British India in a Bengali Muslim family. He served in the Bengal army of the British East India Company as a trainee surgeon. He became attached to the army at the early age of 10, and was taken under the wing of Captain Godfrey Evan Baker, an Anglo-Irish Protestant officer. Mahomet remained with Captain Baker's unit until 1782, when the Captain resigned in disgrace.

In 1784, Mahomed emigrated to Cork, Ireland. There he studied to improve his English language skills at a local school, where he met Jane, a 'pretty' Irish girl from a 'respectable family', who he eloped with. They got married and later moved to Brighton at the turn of the 19th century.

The Travels of Dean Mahomet

In 1794, Mahomed published his travel book, The Travels of Dean Mahomet. The book describes several important cities in India, and describes a series of military conflicts with local Indian principalities. Mahomet's tone in the book is supportive of the British East India Company's military conquests in India.

Michael Fischer claims that several passages from the book were plagiarized from other travel narratives written in the late 18th century.

Restaurant venture

In 1810, after moving to London, Dean Mahomet opened the first Indian take-away restaurant in England: the Hindoostanee Coffee House in George Street, Central London. This venture, however, was unsuccessful.

"Dr. Brighton"

In 1814 he moved with his Irish wife Jane to Brighton. The couple opened the first shampooing vapour masseur bath in England, on the site now occupied by the Queen's Hotel. He described the treatment in a local paper as "The Indian Medicated Vapour Bath (type of Turkish bath), a cure to many diseases and giving full relief when every thing fails; particularly Rheumatic and paralytic, gout, stiff joints, old sprains, lame less, aches and pains in the joints".

This business was an immediate success and Dean Mahomet became known as "Dr. Brighton". Hospitals referred patients to him and he was appointed as shampooing surgeon to both King George IV and William IV.

Family

Sake Dean Mahomed and his Irish wife Jane had five children: Rosanna, Henry, Horatio, Frederick, and Arthur. One of their sons ran a boxing and fencing academy near Brighton, whose own son, Frederick Henry Horatio Akbar Mahomed (c. 1849-1884), became an internationally known physician. Frederick Akbar Mahomed, who worked at Guy's Hospital in London, made substantial contributions to the study of high blood pressure during his short professional career from 1872 to 1884, when he died at the age of 35. Michael F. O'Rourke summarizes the contributions of Frederick Akbar Mahomed as follows:

In detailed clinical studies, he separated chronic nephritis with secondary hypertension from what we now term essential hypertension. He described the constitutional basis and natural history of essential hypertension and pointed out that this disease could terminate with nephrosclerosis and renal failure. His clinical studies were done without the benefit of a sphygmomanometer but with the aid of a quantitative sphygmogram that he had initially developed while a medical student. He described characteristic features of the pressure pulse in patients with high blood pressure and in persons with arteriosclerosis consequent on aging. These pressure wave changes have recently been verified and explained. He contributed to a number of other advances in medical care, including blood transfusion and appendectomy for appendicitis. He initiated the Collective Investigation Record for the British Medical Association; this organization collected data from physicians practicing outside the hospital setting and was the precursor of modern collaborative clinical trials.

Another one of Sake Dean Mahomed's grandsons, Rev. James Kerriman Mahomed, converted to Christianity and was appointed as the vicar of Hove, Sussex, later in the 19th century.

Recognition

According to Pakistani literary critic Muneeza Shamsie, Sake Dean Mahomet began to lose prominence by the Victorian era and until recently was largely forgotten by history. She notes that he also authored the books Cases Cured and Shampooing Surgeon, Inventor of the Indian medicated Vapour and Sea Water Baths etc.

Modern renewal of interest in his writings followed after poet and scholar Alamgir Hashmi drew attention to this author in the 1970s and 1980s. Michael H. Fisher has written a book on Sheikh Dean Mahomet: The First Indian Author in English: Dean Mahomet in India, Ireland and England (Oxford University Press, Delhi — 1996).

On 29 September 2005 the City of Westminster unveiled a Green Plaque commemorating the opening of the Hindoostane Coffee House.

See also

• Lascar

External links

• The Travels of Dean Mahomet
• "Sake Dean Mahomet, Europe's first Asian Shaikh", The News International, Pakistan
• "Making History - Sake Dean Mahomed - Regency 'Shampooing Surgeon'", BBC - Beyond the Broadcast
• Black History in Brighton