Imagine, if you will, it is the 1800s, and Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin is tinkering around in his workshop! During one of his evil scientist moments, Joseph created the guillotine (naturally named after him.) To be clear, he was not an evil scientist by any records I have discovered; it just sounded super cute at the moment. After all, what completely sane person decides I am going to today create this massive wooden structure that will hold a blade that, when the lever was pulled, will promptly separate a person’s head from his shoulders? Joseph deemed this to be far kinder than the ax or the gallows.
It would be best to understand that Joseph, who felt entirely falsely judged for his invention, which he reiterated, was derived from the purest of motives. Joseph described his creation as a “philanthropic gesture” in what he deemed “social progress for the criminal justice system.” From what Joseph described as an aristocrat to enslaved person, all received the same outcome. I wonder if Joseph would have felt the same fleeting justice for the system if he had been at the opposite end of the guillotine lever. In the oddest details that I could have lived my entire life without ever knowing, they continued using the guillotine into the twentieth century! The other fact I could have randomly wandered through life without ever knowing is that there is scientific evidence to support the head can remain alive, for how long countless scientists continue to argue the evidence. There were reports Anne Boleyn attempted to speak after decapitation and that killer Charlotte Corday’s cheeks flushed, and she appeared angry after being slapped by an onlooker to the execution.
Forest of Words 