In the absence of any criteria as to whom to conscript the conscription gangs were eager to collect as many men as could be found without any regard to age or physical fitness. It was reported that out of 48,000 men collected throughout the 1820s and sent to the Hankah camp to the north of Cairo only 20,000 men were fit for military service. “Lame, blind, decrepid, all were sent without distinction.”

SEED: The staggering 42% mortality/attrition rate in conscription could anchor an article on state violence and demographic waste in early modernization.

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 478