At the same time soldiers, and occasionally officers, often feigned sickness to avoid being sent to the front and to have a pretext for staying in the relative security of the field hospital. Cadets in military school sometimes acted similarly; on being sent to the hospital it would soon be noticed that they had not lost their appetite and that "each one of them was eating as much as four." Officers who were discovered to have been cheating in this manner were discharged from service altogether, sent to the Liman of Alexandria, and were stripped of their medals and uniforms.

XREF: Relates to earlier claims about women's self-maiming and villagers' desertion, showing resistance to army service took many covert forms beyond desertion. SEED: An article angle: how the medical field hospital became a site of resistance — soldiers weaponizing illness claims against the state's own disciplinary apparatus. Builds on: "Conscripts universally resisted through desertion and self-inflicted wounds."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 1154