Maulana Muhammad Ali - A Strategic Point in Indo-Muslim Politics (Comment)

‘A great man’, says Justice Oliver Wendell, Jr, ‘represents a great ganglion in the nerves of society, or to vary the figure, a strategic point in the campaign of history, and part of his greatness consists in being there’. (italic ours). And Maulana Muhammad Ali was one such nerve-centre in Indo-Muslim society during the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Indeed, he was one such strategic point in the onward march of Indo-Muslim politics that eventually found culmination and crystallization in the emergence of Pakistan. Actually no one else represented the tone, tenor and temper of the romanticist, Khilafatist era (in the 1910s and 1920s) as he did in his hectic life, his revolutionary activities his numerous discomfitures, and in his tragic death. Whether he led a hectic life, whether he took recourse to a revolutionary path, or whether he goaded himself to die a tragic death outside the frontiers of his motherland cataclysmically, in whatever he did, he, consciously or unconsciously, carried forward the campaign of Indo-Muslim history: the redemption of Islam in India and abroad. In other words, he stood, above all, for an honourable existence for Muslims in India and in the rest of the troubled Muslim world in the existential crisis that convulsed Muslim India and that world.

An Analysis of the Clinical Practice of Emergency Medicine in Public Emergency Centres in Kenya

Objectives: To describe the case mix, interventions, procedures and management of patients in public accident and emergency departments (A&Es) in Kenya. Methods: This was an observational study of patients who presented to 15 A&Es from 1 October to 31 December 2010. The study was conducted across Kenya in two national referral hospitals, five secondary level hospitals, and eight primary level hospitals. All patients presenting alive to the A&E during the 24 hour study period that were seen by a doctor or clinical officer were included in the study. A data collection form was completed by the primary investigator at the time of the initial A&E consultation documenting patient demographics, presenting complaints, investigations ordered, procedures done, initial diagnosis and outcome of A&E consultation. Results: Data on 1887 patient presentations were described with adults (≥13 years) accounting for the majority (70%) of patients. There were two peak age groups, 0-9 and 20–30 years accounting for 27% and 25% of the patients respectively. Respiratory and trauma presentations each accounted for 21% of presentations with a widespread of other presentations. Over half (58%) of the patients were investigated in the department and an equal number (56%) were treated and discharged from the A&E. Only one in three patients admitted or transferred to specialist units received any immediate therapy. Conclusions: Public accident and emergency departments in Kenya provide care to a widespread undifferentiated patient population yet most of the immediate therapy is provided only to patients with minor conditions who are subsequently discharged from the A&Es. Sicker patients have to await transfer to the wards or specialist units to start receiving treatment.