Who Invented the Electric Chair?

[pioneer]

The electric chair was invented by a dentist.

[bol-anon nga cebuano]

Dr. Alfred P. Southwick (1826 - 1898), was a dentist from Buffalo, New York. He was credited with inventing the first electric chair as a method of execution. The idea came when he witnessed an intoxicated man touch a live electric generator. After the man died quickly, Dr. Southwick concluded that electricity could be used as an alternative to hanging for executions. As Southwick was a dentist who was accustomed to performing procedures on subjects in chairs, his device for electrical execution appeared in the form of an "electric chair."

But the first electric chair was made by Harold Pitney Brown. An American inventor who was hired by Thomas Edison to help develop the chair after he wrote an editorial to the New York Post describing how a young boy was killed after accidentally touching an exposed telegraph wire using alternating current.

[pioneer]

Thanks BNC for supplying the info for the short trivia.

[bol-anon nga cebuano]

you're always welcome mike.

[Lorenzo]

This was a barbaric form of lethal punishment. Lethal injection and death by guillotine is considered merciful in comparison to the electric chair.

Sometimes, an inmate was electrocuted for over 3 minutes till dead.