Dr. Guillotin's Idea

DR. GUILLOTIN’S IDEA* By JAMES HENDRIE LLOYD, M.D. PHILADELPHIA T would be impossible to name any the apostles of progress had found free other physician who has won fame voice. D’Alembert, a student and by such a short cut as that which mathematician, helped to undermine distinguishes the case of Dr. still further a decaying tyranny. There IJoseph Ignatius Guillotin. His famewere others too numerous to name; was the outgrowth of the French sentimentalists in search of a Utopia. Revolution; a crisis in history which But the most potent voice was that made, as well as un-made, not a few of Rousseau, who proclaimed his reputations. For the medical profes Social Contract and his State of sion the case is unique; there is noth Nature; things which had never ex ing like it in the pages of medical isted and never can exist. All these history, unless we admit as a rival influences doubtless helped to shape Dr. Gatling who invented a famous the career of Dr. Guillotin, who seems gun. But the two cases are hardly to have been merely a mild enthusiast, alike. not a wild fanatic; in no sense a Dr. Guillotin was born in 1738, and dangerous man, like Marat or became a respectable practitioner in Robespierre. Paris. There is no record of scientific In the Revolution we see examples work by him, except that the Index of the follies and tragedies of dreamers Catalogue gives him credit for three and uplifters, blind to the possible papers, with Latin titles, which were disasters that may come of the at published long before the Revolution. tempt to realize their foolish dreams. These papers are buried in forgotten As Lowell has said, “To dwell in archives. Probably the best approach unrealities is the doom of the senti to him is by way of the Pre-Revolu mentalists.”1 But it was the doom of tionary writers, under whose influence Dr. Guillotin to see his dream turned he seems to have entered upon the into a ghastly reality. historic scene. When the Revolution began, Dr. The Revolution had been preparing Guillotin showed himself to be some for many years, during which there thing of a politician as well as a physi had arisen a miscellaneous assortment cian. He was elected a member of the of philosophers, encyclopedists, ideal States-Gencral, which later became ists and dreamers, whose object was the National Assembly, organized to not only to reform France, but also to reform the state. It was an era of hope, reconstruct the world. Voltaire was a but it was also a crisis. The people sceptic in revolt. Montesquieu wrote were incited to demand and to expect his Spirit of the Laws, in which he a relief from the oppressions of a state dissected the body politic with the that had grown intolerable. In a pen of a scientist. Diderot founded the popular demonstration in Paris Dr. Encyclopedia, in the pages of which Guillotin was once carried shoulder- * Read before the Section on Medical History of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, January 12, 1932. high by the crowd, and he was elected he who proposed the celebrated meet Assistant Secretary of the Third Es ing in the Tennis Court, where the tate. The doctor must have felt that members took the oath which inau gurated the Revolution. He served on a special deputation to the king; and he once carried to Versailles the news of an alarming riot in Paris; an event which, it would seem, might have shaken his faith a little in the proletariat. But Dr. Guillotin was reserved for greater things than these, and in due time he showed what was in his mind. As has been said, Dr. Guillotin was well-meaning and kind-hearted, and he had long been meditating the sub ject of capital punishment. It was a subject well worth attention, for like so much else in France it needed reform. In the Old Regime a discrimi nation had been made between the nobility and the commons. Aristocrats had been beheaded with the sword, but people of the lower orders had been hanged. Dr. Guillotin would his time had come to launch out as a abolish all this, and reduce capital humanitarian, for that was his ambi punishment to a democratic level. tion. He was a philanthropist, intent In his meditations he somehow got upon taking his part in a movement hold of the idea of a machine for for the benefit of mankind. He did not, cutting off heads. It was to be a con and could not, foresee that “he was tribution to the brotherhood of man. doomed by a satiric destiny to the The distinction between nobles and strangest immortal glory that ever commoners was no longer to be kept obscure mortal from his resting allowed. All were to have their heads place, the bosom of oblivion.”2 lopped off alike. When Dr. Guillotin, in 1789, took The idea of such a machine was his place in what was to become the not entirely original with Dr. Guillo National Assembly at Versailles, his tin. It is said that something like it first thought was to promote hygiene.3 had been formerly used in Italy; also He was concerned about the ventila in England; and in Scotland, where tion of the hall, which was over they had what was called the “Scotch crowded and stuffy, and he suggested Maiden.”4 It is even said that an axe, remedies. He also observed that the dating from the Stone Age, has been seats were hard and uncomfortable, found (in 1865) near Vervins in so he proposed that the members France. It is of flint, and worked like a should have cushions. His proposals machine, and had been used by the were received with high favor. It was ancient Gauls. It is an odd coincidence that it should have been found in to allow the nation to enjoy this France. advantage.” Like many of our re In the elaboration of his idea Dr. formers, Dr. Guillotin seems to have Guillotin seems to have spent much been without a saving sense of humor. time, and shown not a little ingenuity. He was even criticized for lack of good We arc told that the house is still taste, as shown in the stark realism pointed out in Paris in which he is with which he described the working said (but without any given evidence) of his machine to that august Assem to have made his novel experiments in bly. But what has good taste to do in vivisection, and tried the little model the schemes of up-lifters? of his machine on rats.5 He even con Although first proposed in 1789, the sulted Sanson, the executioner of invention was only accepted, after Paris, as to the best method of cutting some opposition, on May 3, 1791. Its off peoples’ heads; and Sanson wrote construction was intrusted later to him an interesting memorial on the Dr. Antoine Louis, secretary of the subject, which Dr. Guillotin after Academy of Surgery, who was surgeon wards took to the Assembly and read and bleeder to the king. Dr. Louis during the debate. This memorial has made the infernal thing, or had it recently been reproduced by Lenotre, made, according to Dr. Guillotin’s and presents the opinions of an expert suggestions, and tested it on sheep; or in decapitation.6 For success with the according to another account, the sword (the old-fashioned way) it was tests were made by Sanson, the execu necessary for the victim to be as cool tioner, on corpses at the hospital of and firm as the executioner. If either the Bicetre. lost his nerve, the execution might The story goes that when Dr. Louis be bungled; and instances occurred found that it worked well, he showed of very horrible scenes on the scaffold. it to King Louis xvi, who had a taste These embarrassments would evi for mechanics, and made a good sug dently be avoided by Dr. Guillotin’s gestion. For when his Majesty ob machine.7 served that the blade was set Dr. Guillotin presented his plan to horizontally, he advised that it should the National Assembly in a debate on be set obliquely, which was accord the Reform of the Penal Code. His ingly done; and thus it was set as address was long-winded, for he had though by his own hand, when in less the subject much at heart and strove than a year it cut off the King’s head.8 to impress his hearers with the advan Such arc some of the legends in which tages of his machine and the benevo this history abounds. lence of his own motives. He assured Dr. Louis wrote a long report to the them that it would “take off a head Assembly on the subject of the pro in a twinkling, and the victim would posed implement, in which report he feel nothing but a sense of refreshing did not even mention Dr. Guillotin’s coolness.” Whereat the members all name; an injustice which history has laughed; many of whom were destined not been slow to resent.9 It proves, in time to test the accuracy of the however, that it was not Dr. Guillotin doctor’s prognosis. He even told the but Dr. Louis who was the real agent members in all seriousness, “We can in the final setting up of the not make too much haste, gentlemen, machine. It was at first called the Louison, or seems to have been largely specula Louisette, after Dr.

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