Capital punishment has been abolished in many places due to the increasing
support of the idea of ​​preservation of life, those countries that continue to practice it,
have resorted to more practical and convenient methods considered more "humane".
But to get to what we now know as “lethal injection”,
the prisoners who were sentenced to death had to withstand different and more elaborate methods
over the centuries, which in some cases were extremely painful, humiliating and grotesque.
Today we will further analyze the guillotine, one of the most famous
execution devices of all times, established during the French revolution to control mobs of people…
Welcome to Copernicus Galaxy Beheadings in ancient civilizations
As you may have noticed in countless movies about characters and societies of the old days,
beheading was the most popular form of execution to punish crimes or
dispose of enemy survivors on the battlefield. This method was not exclusive to any civilization,
because it was a fast and easy way to end someone’s life, it was utilized in many places
such as Greece, Rome, Japan and England. In each of the previously mentioned civilizations,
the sentence was carried out differently, in Greece and Rome losing your head was an
honorable death, this was an exclusive punishment for important people, if you belonged to the
lowest ranks within the highest social circles, you would possibly get an execution with an ax,
on the other hand if the sentenced person was a high-ranking ruler,
general or even part of the royalty, he would have the honor of being decapitated with a sword.
In contrast, the Japanese samurai practiced a ritual beheading known as “seppuku”
between the 15th and 19th centuries for those warriors who hurt their honor.
In England, it was introduced by king William the conqueror during the 11th century and was
set aside for high-ranking delinquents, traitors were other victims of beheadings
in these lands, with the difference that they were tied to horse and dragged through
the dirt and rocks of the ground until they reached the place of execution.
What was it like to witness an execution with the guillotine?
A creepy scene as such today would be more than enough to cause psychological trauma in
children and make more than one person puke or have nightmares for several nights.
Sometimes the information regarding the execution date was imparted to the print media
later to be announced in their publications, while in other cases it was kept secret
to prevent the citizens from finding out until preparations were already underway.
The image of these executions was so twisted that children could purchase souvenirs related
to said sentence, such as miniature guillotines to decapitate their toys or rodents they might find
at home, in some instances these small figures were the most desired birthday gift for infants.
During the long-awaited day, crowds of people filled the streets, bars, and nearby hotels
just to witness a convicted man’s head roll away from his body, bleacher seats were sold,
and children climbed tress and poles to get a better view of the “stage”
Meanwhile, the prisoner was shaved and sometimes dragged by two guards to his final stop in life,
while thousands of voices jeer and laugh at his misfortune. Once the base of guillotine
was reached, he was forced to lie on it to be tied so the sharp blade of the
machine could make a clean cut. When the guillotine was lowered,
the head was quickly separated from the body and would fall into a basket,
the executioner was then admired for his work, and if there wasn’t another poor soul next in line
awaiting his sentence, everything was over. It was developed as a more humane way of execution
Many would think that beheading someone was a merciful, rapid, and almost painless death,
because we have been led to believe that it was as easy as cutting butter.
Truth is a simple swing of the sword or dropping the entire weight of the ax
on the neck of a convict wasn’t enough, in many scenarios a single blow from one
of these sharp objects wasn’t enough to detach the head from the rest of the body.
If either the cutting angle was off, the force wasn’t sufficient, or if the edge was dull,
the blade of the ax would not be able to pierce through all muscles and bones of the neck, leaving
the poor human being on the verge of death and causing him an insufferable amount of pain, while
waiting for the final blow that would end his agony… this was so common that the prisoners
would beg to be the first ones up with the executioner to reduce the risk of suffering.
For all these reasons, French surgeon Joseph Ignace Guillotine brought up the idea of creating
a new device that would be more effective in avoiding unnecessary suffering, something
that would decapitate the convict so quickly that he won’t even feel it,
however, no one paid attention to him.
Despite being against executions, he asked Dr. Antoine Louis to design this machine for him,
which he would later entrust its manufacture to
Tobias Schmidt from Germany. Test were carried out on sheep and corpses.
In the end, it was adopted the national assembly in April 1792 and baptized as “Guillotine” in his
honor, something that Guillotine disavowed trying to get as far as possible from his creation and
requesting the French government change the name of the machine without any success.
The Prunier experiment In 1879 man named Monsiur Theotime Prunier who was
sentenced to the guillotine, allowed three French doctors who were interested in checking whether
the brains of the decapitated were still conscious after a beheading to attend his execution.
And honestly, anyone would be intrigued with the theory that a decapitated head could in its last
seconds of life be aware that it is no longer attached to its body or even see its corpse
after the beheading, perhaps change its expression or evoke some sound, as creepy as this may seem.
Inspired by this motivation, once the sharp blade of the guillotine detached Prunier’s head from
the rest of his body, the group of doctors picked it up as quickly as possible and by
means of shouts, pins, ammonia under his noser or even fire, tried to obtain an intelligent
response from the head…as a result, they could only notice a look of astonishment.
How long was the person still alive for after the beheading?
According to the current research that we have regarding the human brain’s functions,
there is a possibility that a very small amount of consciousness remains,
even if it’s for a few seconds, on the heads that have been stripped of their bodies.
This has been proved today with tests performed on lab rats, which after being knocked out,
still showed electric activity in their small brains for 4 seconds.
For obvious ethical reasons, proving if this equally applies to humans is difficult,
forcing us to only speculate whether this is possible basing ourselves on
ancient accounts from researchers who lived in the same as the guillotine.
People have talked about observations made by doctors like Gabriel Beaurieux who describe how
after beheading a prisoner and pronouncing his name, the prisoner mad eye contact with him,
others tell stories about heads that change their facial expressions for about 30-50 seconds,
some blinked or even tried to pronounce words… all these stories are possibly exaggerated
since its more likely that these were all involuntary movements of the facial muscles,
unfortunately this is still a mystery that will never be resolved, at least not in our times.
Hamida Djandoubi’s final hours, the last guillotine victim in history
During the years in which France was debating whether to abolish capital punishment,
an immigrant from Tunisia walked through the streets and kidnapped,
tortured, and assassinated a 19-year-old girl named Elizabeth.
The body of the teen was found 4 days after her death
and a month later Hamida was arrested attempting another abduction,
he cooperated with the police, informing about specific details from the day of Elizabeth’s
death thanks to this he was sentenced to death, a ruling he tried to appeal without success.
The man’s final hours were told in a few paragraphs,
which were written by the judge in charge of supervising the execution.
She wrote about how the prisoner was prepared, by having to put on his prosthetic leg,
the walk through the corridors to the anteroom of the guillotine, where he requested a glass
of rum as his final wish which was kindly offered to him by one pf the guards, he then
drank it slowly knowing that once the last drop rolled down his throat, his life would be over.
The prisoner complained about the handcuffs being too tight. So a guard approached him and removed
them from his wrists, but not without saying a chilling phrase that caused the attendees
to shiver “now you are free” and seconds later the sharp blade was dropped ending his life.
Quick and effective, that’s how judge Monique Mabelly described the final
second of who would become the last man to be sentenced to death with the guillotine…
Whether your opinion on capital punishment is positive or negative, it is undeniable that the
methods used before our time were terrifying and not as humane as they were believed to be, only
those who were executed can assure the agony that these methods caused, even the more “humane” one
used today, if we were to ever find out, we will be here to tell you about it in Copernicus Galaxy.