Deadly Creation: Guillotine
Deadly Creation In today’s world it’s simple. If you do something bad or illegal our justice system will take action. You will either be sent to prison or, if bad enough, it will result in the death penalty. That’s not how it’s always been.
As Sean Quinlan said “Physical and moral regeneration was one of the great aspirations of the French Revolution. Revolutionaries fashioned new cultural practices to emphasize collective rebirth and the individual citizen's own break with a degenerate past.” The term "guillotine" as applied to amputations is perhaps not as suitable or as descriptive of the operation that is really done, as the term "flapless operation," but priority counts for much in medicine and surgery and the word will, no doubt, continue in use. The guillotine is overall a pretty simple creation created by Doctor Guillotin in the 1790’s era. It consisted of a diagonal eighty pound blade that would fall fourteen feet in 7/100 of a second. Therefor slicing through the victim’s neck in less than 0.005 seconds. This brilliant creation the French used on over 40,000 civilians through the French Revolution may have seemed like a simple creation, but contained more than a just a few parts.
This decapitating machine consisted of the platform, posts, déclic for the rope, a crossbar, the bascule (bench supporting the body), and the lunette (the device holding the head) were made of hard wood. The mouton was the metal weight to which the blade was attached. The extra weight ensured a swift, clean cut. The blade itself was made of steel, and the heavy-duty rope was cotton. Leather straps restrained the victim's body around the arms and to the bench around the back and legs. A leather bag or basket was also used to catch the falling head.
Very few design changes occurred during the history of the guillotine. The primary modification was the change of the size and weight of the machine to a horse-drawn cart when portability was needed to increase the consistency of
As Sean Quinlan said “Physical and moral regeneration was one of the great aspirations of the French Revolution. Revolutionaries fashioned new cultural practices to emphasize collective rebirth and the individual citizen's own break with a degenerate past.” The term "guillotine" as applied to amputations is perhaps not as suitable or as descriptive of the operation that is really done, as the term "flapless operation," but priority counts for much in medicine and surgery and the word will, no doubt, continue in use. The guillotine is overall a pretty simple creation created by Doctor Guillotin in the 1790’s era. It consisted of a diagonal eighty pound blade that would fall fourteen feet in 7/100 of a second. Therefor slicing through the victim’s neck in less than 0.005 seconds. This brilliant creation the French used on over 40,000 civilians through the French Revolution may have seemed like a simple creation, but contained more than a just a few parts.
This decapitating machine consisted of the platform, posts, déclic for the rope, a crossbar, the bascule (bench supporting the body), and the lunette (the device holding the head) were made of hard wood. The mouton was the metal weight to which the blade was attached. The extra weight ensured a swift, clean cut. The blade itself was made of steel, and the heavy-duty rope was cotton. Leather straps restrained the victim's body around the arms and to the bench around the back and legs. A leather bag or basket was also used to catch the falling head.
Very few design changes occurred during the history of the guillotine. The primary modification was the change of the size and weight of the machine to a horse-drawn cart when portability was needed to increase the consistency of