Despite the benefits of routine medical examinations, there does not seem to have been any effort to convince the men of them or to enlist their support. Soldiers resented being so minutely examined by the doctors and often lied about their physical condition in order to avoid being sent to the field hospitals. For example, a general medical examination was once conducted on the soldiers of the 12th Infantry Regiment in Syria. The European doctors found that twelve men were infected with syphilis and 210 with scabies. None of them was sent to the hospital and they were still living side by side with the regiment at large. When the Egyptian doctors were asked why the sick had not been interned in the hospital as the regulations stipulated, they answered that whenever they asked them, the soldiers denied being afflicted with any diseases.

Builds on: "Medical inspections recorded soldiers' bodies and conditions with exacting detail."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1153