Biografia de joseph ignace guillotin biography

French physician, politician and freemason

This article is about Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. For other uses, including the device named after him, see Guillotine (disambiguation).

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin (French:[ʒozɛfiɲasɡijɔtɛ̃]; 28 May 1738 – 26 March 1814) was a French physician, politician, and freemason who proposed on 10 October 1789 the use of a device to carry out executions in France, as a less painful method of execution than existing methods.

Although he did not invent the guillotine and opposed the death penalty, his name became an eponym for it. The actual inventor of the prototype was a man named Tobias Schmidt, working with the king's physician, Antoine Louis.

Early life and education

Guillotin was born on 28 May 1738 in Saintes, France, the second son of Joseph-Alexandre Guillotin and Catherine Agatha Martin. Legend has it that he was born prematurely because his mother was in distress after hearing the screams of a man being