Sunday 14 September 2008

Philanthropy

In 1862 Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling patented the first machine gun.

As Wikipedia puts it...

He invented the Gatling gun after he noticed the majority of dead returning from the American Civil War died of illness, rather than gunshots. In 1877, he wrote: "It occurred to me that if I could invent a machine - a gun - which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a large extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease [would] be greatly diminished."

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

And considerably lessen his workload - no doubt!
Now that's what you call a labour saving device.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant idea, shoot them to save them getting ill.
Hope the NHS don't adopt the same policy. :)

Anonymous said...

I'm sure that's really a bit of one of those rotary engines Norton made a few years ago.

Chertiozhnik said...

Trrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Oh doctor oh doctor I'm hurtin'
These's a hole where I used to beeee

Chertiozhnik said...

There's

But WTF

Chertiozhnik said...

It looks to me like Paddington Bear with his hat on and his label and suitcase.

But I could be wrong.

Or drunk.

Both.