However, it was the narrower concern for the health and hygiene of the soldiers that attracted most of the Pasha's attention and that of his chief medical advisors. The concentration of large numbers of men in the military schools, training camps and, of course, in the field camps along the different warring fronts, brought with it the possibility of widespread disease which could have posed serious threats to a country whose manpower was already drained by the Pasha's insatiable needs. As in his attempt to control smallpox, the plague and cholera, the Pasha learned his lesson the hard way. In the early months of the disastrous Sudan campaign the army that he sent down there lost 600 men who fell dead of various diseases. Owing to the lack of doctors, medicine and qualified medical personnel the number of dead in September 1821 rose to 600 in addition to 2,000 men who had fallen prey to various diseases. The following month the number of dead rose even further to 1,500: this in an army of three thousand troops.

XREF: Connects to the earlier claim about Sudanese conscript mortality compelling reliance on native Egyptian recruits (loc 444). Builds on: "Sudanese conscript mortality compelled reliance on native Egyptian recruits."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1116