British surgeon Alexander Falconbridge condemns the practice of slavery after serving on slave ships.
Date: 1787
Reflecting on the widespread belief that there is something "wrong" with the enslaved Africans who die in great numbers from dysentery and other illnesses, Falconbridge names the cause of illness as slavery itself. The large majority of physicians on board these ships never spoke out against the extent of brutality, nor identified the inhumanity of slavery as the reason for the extent of illness and death.