Egyptian army hospitals were chronically underfunded despite spending a fraction of European levels

Evidence

Lack of funds seems to have been one of the principal reasons for the dilapidated condition of the army hospitals in Syria as well as those in Egypt, and Clot Bey was in the habit of writing bitter letters to the War Department complaining about the insufficiency of medicine and food issued to the hospitals. “I do not understand,” he said in one such letter, “why there is always a readiness not only to belittle the [entire] medical service but also to abolish [things] related to it … [This in spite of the fact] that the medical regulations used in the various hospitals in Egypt stipulate the expenditure of only one-twentieth of what hospitals in Europe spend.” In that respect the Chief Physician of the army sometimes had the backing of the Pasha; more often, however, the Pasha in his typical thrifty manner would require him to make do with what was available. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1131

Categorization

• XREF: Reflects Muhammad Ali’s thrift that constrained his ambitious military expansion, central to the reader’s question.
• SHARE: The Pasha’s proverb-like reply ‘each person has to extend his legs as much as could be covered by his trousers’ is a memorable nugget about Ali’s fiscal character.