May 28

The Hippocratic Oath, taken by all physicians, reads in part, [n]ever to do deliberate harm to anyone for anyone else's interest. I wonder how a certain physician, born on the 28th in 1738 was able to reconcile his advocacy of a form of capital punishment to which his name would be given. I speak of course of Dr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin. Guillotin was very strongly opposed to the very idea of capital punishment but felt it necessary for France to develop a more humane manner in which the sentence of death could be carried out. On October 10, 1789, the good doctor strongly advocated the development of a machine to carry out the death sentence. His intentions were undeniably honorable but when the French Revolution morphed into the Terror, and people were being beheaded with the Guillotine at the rate of 35,000 a month, I am certain that he must have regretted not keeping his big mouth shut.