Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a physician during the French Revolution, was, surprisingly, a humanitarian. Opposed to the brutal methods of execution of his day, he proposed to the Assembly that a mechanical device be adopted so that anyone, regardless of rank, could die quickly and without pain. He did not in fact invent the machine, but people named it the guillotine after the man who proposed it. Yet amid the Reign of Terror, this machine beheaded thousands and became a symbol of death. A physician's good intention to lessen suffering thus lived on in history as one of the most dreaded words of all.