French physician best known for proposing the idea of executing prisoners using the bladed device that has come to be known as the "guillotine".
He won the title of Doctor-Regent while a member of the faculty at Rheims.
Despite the fact that the guillotine was named after him, it was Antoine Louis, not Guillotin, who invented the prototype.
His family was so ashamed of their association with the guillotine that they petitioned the French government to re-name it.
He and Benjamin Franklin were both part of a commission to investigate the idea of "animal magnetism".
