Antedating of "Guillotine"

[Chris Waigl]

On Tue, 27 Dec 2005 23:25:08 -0500, Joel S. Berson typed:

> Was there any testing on animals, before the first human?

The site herodote.net mentions sheep, in addition to already-dead
bodies (which appear in the text from the Documentation française, a
government organisation). The German harpsichord-maker Tobias
Schmidt built the first one, after the quote from the state
carpenters was found excessively onerous.

<http://www.herodote.net/histoire11281.htm>
<http://www.ladocumentationfrancaise.fr/dossiers/abolition-peine-mort/guillotine.shtml>

Lots of French synonyms and nicknames, some of which I hadn't known.

Chris Waigl