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ARTICLE |

The Real Doctor Guillotin FREE

Dora B. Weiner, PhD
[+] Author Affiliations

Reprint requests to History Department, Manhattanville College, Purchase, NY 10577.


JAMA. 1972;220(1):85-89. doi:10.1001/jama.1972.03200010071012
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The guillotine, the beheading mechanism widely used in the French Revolution, is familiar to everyone. Yet historians hardly know the real Dr. Guillotin. A recent popular biography is a sensationalist travesty; journals in many languages contain short pieces on the guillotine irrelevant to Dr. Guillotin's life. A scholarly article might be technical and discuss the shape of the deadly blade—it evolved from crescentshaped to diagonal—because the surgeon Antoine Louis demonstrated on sheep that diagonal instruments make neater incisions. Elsewhere an author might discuss whether "life" lingered in the severed head or body, and adduce contemporary evidence that a head managed a prearranged wink at the audience. Or again a writer might explore the reasons why the name "guillotine" stuck to a machine that Guillotin neither invented nor christened.

The famous doctor himself has left us no books or articles that might reveal his personality. This may be one reason why

REFERENCES

A. Chéreau: Guillotin et la guillotine (Paris: Union médicale, 1870;)
E.-J. Guérin: " Le docteur Joseph-Ignace Guillotin ," Revue d'Aunis et de Saintonge 28:101-128, 183-192, 224-245, 288-313, 1908;.
A. Soubiran: Ce bon docteur Guillotin et sa simple méchanique (Paris: Perrin, 1962;)
The Good Doctor Guillotin and His Strange Device (London: Souvenir Press, 1964;).

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Country-Specific Mortality and Growth Failure in Infancy and Yound Children and Association With Material Stature

Use interactive graphics and maps to view and sort country-specific infant and early dhildhood mortality and growth failure data and their association with maternal

A. Chéreau: Guillotin et la guillotine (Paris: Union médicale, 1870;)
E.-J. Guérin: " Le docteur Joseph-Ignace Guillotin ," Revue d'Aunis et de Saintonge 28:101-128, 183-192, 224-245, 288-313, 1908;.
A. Soubiran: Ce bon docteur Guillotin et sa simple méchanique (Paris: Perrin, 1962;)
The Good Doctor Guillotin and His Strange Device (London: Souvenir Press, 1964;).
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