Mehmed Ali authorized involuntary plague experiments on Alexandria Liman detainees in 1843.

Evidence

Those interned in the Liman, moreover, had little control over their bodies and the authorities could use them for whatever purpose they saw fit. In 1843 the Pasha issued the following order to the Deputy of the Shūrā Al-Mu‘āwana: … Owing to the arrival, lately, of a number of men from Russia who intend to undertake some experiments related to the plague, which would entail clothing some healthy people with clothes of those who were infected … and since it is certain that no one would approve of doing this experiment [voluntarily], it has been decided that some convicts in the Liman be chosen for this experiment which is beneficial to mankind. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 696

Categorization

• SEED: Article angle: how the ‘beneficial to mankind’ rhetoric of early plague experiments was operationalized by staging them on defenseless convicts — a biographical/medical-ethics history of a specific 1843 episode.
• QUESTION: What became of these plague-clothing experiments and their Russian proponents, and did any detainees survive?