Guillotin, Joseph (Joseph Ignace Guillotin)

Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814) - physician and member of the Constituent Assembly. In 1790, . to make less painful punishment of convicted, . made the decree that, . that "in all cases, . when justice will make the death penalty, . penalty will be the same for all: while the criminal beheaded by a simple mechanism ",
. In April 1792, Mr.. construction of devices to later name the guillotine, was completed. The head of the condemned cut off heavy (approximately 160 kg) knife falling from the top of the guide grooves. The condemned were tied to a vertical board, which then has a horizontal position so that the neck accounted for the fall line of the knife. Under the existing legend, in improving the design of guillotine attended King Louis XVI. Following the tests on the corpses in the hospital Bisetre, April 25, held its first practical application. The guillotine was used extensively in the midst of mass terror, there were days when all at once executed 60 or more people.
. Until the last moments of his life Guillotin was firmly convinced that made a very useful invention in full and complied with that duty, which his conscience dictated.