Muhammad Ali built a military medical corps staffed by Egyptian-trained Arab doctors

Evidence

These two hospitals were reputed to be impressive medical institutions conforming “to the pattern of hospital-affiliated training centers that had become the norm in France and England by 1830.” Besides being a military hospital, the Abū-Za‘bal hospital (later to be known after its new location, Qaṣr al-‘Ainī) also functioned as a medical school. On graduation, the students, mostly Arabic-speaking Egyptians, were appointed as military doctors and attached to the various infantry and cavalry regiments thus forming the nucleus of the new military medical corps. On the eve of the Syrian campaign the blueprint creating this corps was put down by Clot Bey and approved by the Pasha in consultation with his chief physician, the Italian Gaetani Bey, and members of the War Department. It was decided that each infantry regiment was to have one European doctor supervising three Egyptian ones. The cavalry regiments were to have one European doctor in addition to two Egyptian ones. Those Egyptian doctors were to be given the rank of second lieutenant. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1118

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in the birth of the modern Egyptian army and how European expertise was layered over Egyptian recruits under Muhammad Ali.