Egyptian peasants so feared conscription that they blinded themselves with rat poison.

Evidence

Other ways of maiming were more dangerous and resulted in serious bodily harm. One such method resorted to by the fellahin was to blind themselves by putting rat poison in their eyes. On hearing about such terrible practice, Mehmed Ali wrote to the governors forbidding the spice merchants from selling rat poison altogether. As for those unfortunates who had actually used it, they were sentenced to life imprisonment in the Liman of Alexandria. In one case a woman gouged out the eyes of two men, one a soldier who had deserted from the army, and the other her son (who might have been asked to join the army himself). On being informed about this case, the Pasha ordered her to be drowned in the Nile, the deserter to be sent to the Liman of Alexandria, and the son to be pardoned. In an attempt to prevent those who assisted the men in maiming themselves, usually their wives or mothers, an order was issued to hang these women at the entrances of their villages so “as to be an example to others.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1353

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Self-blinding as preferable to military service, plus the state hanging the women who helped, shows the depth of coercion and despair underlying Mehmed Ali’s army — a density of horror that resists summary.
• QUESTION: What drove such extreme self-harm? Worth tracing the conditions of fellahin service that made blinding preferable.
• ADDENDUM: This fits the sacrifice theme’s inverse: here subjects mutilate themselves to refuse a state demand, and the state punishes helpers more than the maimed.