Doctor wanted to help bring relief of suffering

               If Joe had lived today, he would probably have been considered a liberal, or at least with liberal tendencies.  That is, if you are prone to labeling people.  He didn’t consider himself all that liberal, but he did have a few things he disagreed with. 

            Joe was a physician, actually studied at some of the finer schools, including medical school.  And one thing that Joe was interested in, as are most doctors, is the relief of suffering.  I mean, isn’t that why doctors go into the field of medicine?  They want to help people who are suffering.  Well, we have it on good authority that was Joe’s primary impetus.  And although Joe never published any of his medical findings in his life time, we do have several other written pieces to go by.  Some are written in Joe own hand, some by others who knew him. 

            For one thing, Joe cut a fairly wide path when he did get on a jag.  And he was on one now that would make history, and put his name squarely in the books forever, even though it truly doesn’t belong there. 

            You see, there was one area of human suffering that Joe watched with real disgust, and he vowed to do something about it.  As a matter of fact he was a member of a select group of people who had just about dedicated themselves to doing something about it.  Perhaps because of his medical training, perhaps because of his quick mind and extensive knowledge, perhaps because he actually came from a rather prominent and relatively famous family, it was Joe who was chosen by the group to head up the cause and be their official spokesperson.

            And he did.  He lobbied the government at every level.  Legislators, lawmakers, bureaucrats - you name it.  If they had anything to do with making laws, Joe was in their face promoting his cause to relieve this particular kind of human suffering.  And as I said, he was successful.  He got the laws changed and became famous in history for his action. 

            Now, it’s important here for you to realize that you, like I, have been under a false impression for years now.  You have been told, wrongly I might add, that Joe is the guy who invented the thing, but the clear fact is that he didn’t.  Nope.  It was actually invented by a German named Tobias Schmidt.  But it was Joe who lobbied so vehemently for its acceptance, that the thing actually got named after him. 

            Truth is, it embarrassed his family so badly that they actually changed their name.  Yeah.  It’s all true.  It’s a Little Known Fact that Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin did not invent the famous machine that lopped off such famous heads as Marie Antoinette and thousands of others, but it was his tireless lobbying of the government for more humane executions that got the thing named after him in the history books.