Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin
Blade that killed representative on a mission Carrier.
Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was born in 1738. Legend has it that Guillotin’s mother went into labour after hearing the screams of a man who was being broken on the wheel. Guillotin became a professor of literature in Bordeaux but would later study medicine in Paris. Guillotin’s prestige was such that he was appointed by Louis XVI to investigate Franz Mesmer theories of “animal magnetism.”
He was one of the ten Paris deputies to the Estates-General in 1789. He noticed at Versailles that it was difficult for people to hear speakers at the Assembly he proposed that people instead sit in a semi-circle. He was also on hand to suggest that when the Assembly were locked out they could use a tennis court across the way.
His main concerns however were of a medical nature. He was very concerned at the methods of capital punishment and wished for a more humane end for the guilty. He believed that equality should not just be a theoretical approach towards economics and rights but should apply to the death penalty. In France nobles were dispatched by beheading while the poor were hung. His proposals were adopted and a machine was used to speed up the process and remove human error. This machine was named after the doctor even though he himself did not invent it. His hope was that the machine would hopefully lead to the abandonment of the death penalty and would see executions become less a crowd event and a more sombre clinical affair. This turned out not to be the case. Guillotin himself died a peaceful death in 1814.