Torture with drops of water. The most terrible torture (21 photos)

WATER TORTURE

Inquisitive human thought could not ignore the rich possibilities of water.

Firstly , a person could be completely immersed in water, from time to time, giving him the opportunity to raise his head and breathe in the air, while asking if he had renounced heresy.

Secondly , it was possible to pour water (in large quantities) into a person so that it burst him like an inflated ball. This torture was popular because it did not inflict serious bodily harm on the victim, and then she could be tortured for a very long time. During torture, the interrogated person's nostrils were closed and a liquid was poured into his mouth through a funnel, which he had to swallow, sometimes vinegar was used instead of water, or even urine mixed with liquid feces. Quite often, to increase the suffering, the victims poured hot water, almost boiling water.

The procedure was repeated several times to infuse the maximum amount of liquid into the stomach. Depending on the severity of the crime in which the victim was accused, from 4 to 15 (!!!) liters of water were poured into her. Then the angle of the body of the accused was changed, he was laid on his back in a horizontal position and the weight of the full stomach squeezed the lungs and heart. The feeling of lack of air and heaviness in the chest complemented the pain from a distended stomach. If this was not enough to force a confession, the executioners placed a board on the swollen belly of the tortured and pressed on him, increasing the suffering of the victim. In modern times, this torture was often used by the Japanese in POW camps.

Thirdly , the bound heretic was laid on a table with a recess like a trough. His mouth and nose were covered with a wet rag, and then they began to pour water slowly and for a long time. Soon the rag was stained with blood from the nose and throat, and the prisoner either had time to mutter the words of confession of heresy, or died.

Fourth , the prisoner was tied to a chair, and water oozed slowly, drop by drop, onto his shaved crown. After a while, each falling drop resounded in my head with an infernal roar, which could not but encourage recognition.

Fifth , the temperature of the water, which in one case or another increased the required effect of exposure, could not be ignored. This is scalding, dipping in boiling water or boiling entirely. For these purposes, not only water, but also other liquids were used. In medieval Germany, for example, a criminal was boiled alive in boiling oil, but not immediately, but gradually. At first, the feet were lowered, then to the knees, etc. until “full readiness”.

Illustrations: Alexander Kotlyarov

People go to extremes all the time, even in something as basic as eating. A man once heard that the more water he drinks a day, the better he feels and loses weight faster - and let's drink liters of water! Or that boiled meat without fat is healthier than grilled meat - and let's eat meat in kilograms! Meanwhile, any excesses are bad. It is on this thesis that several tortures are based, which we will tell you about.

Each torture will be commented on by a real living doctor, or rather, surgeon Alexei Bekhtev. And not shouting “Ah! What a horror! ”, But a detailed medical explanation.

salt torture

So much has already been said, written and filmed about the dangers of salt. feature films(okay, not filmed), which is seemingly stupid in again repeat how harmful salt is. But hardly anyone has felt the deadly qualities of salt more than someone who has been brutally tortured with salt.

In ancient China, this execution was applied to "salt sharers" - persons who added all sorts of extraneous ingredients to expensive salt. But if the goal is not murder, but simply a slow mockery, then by feeding the prisoner with very salty food and restricting him in water, you can bring him to the most difficult condition in the absence of visible damage. Which is especially useful if all sorts of opponents of torture and defenders of human rights are suddenly involved in the case.

Here, for example, is how they act in modern China. Dissident Yuan Yuchun, who was arrested in 2000, tells how she was force-fed very salty food at the Shanli Jinzhou Detention Center. For ten days, starch diluted to the state of gruel was poured into her esophagus through a tube with the addition of salt. “My body darkened, became cold and stiff,” Yuchun writes. - After ten days, I could not straighten my back, legs, arms, even fingers without effort, salty mucus constantly dripped from my nose and mouth. They must have thought I was dying, because on December 12, 2000 I was released.”

Word to the doctor In this torture, we are dealing with a violation of water-salt metabolism. If a person consumes more than a kilogram of salt per day, the level of sodium in the blood goes off scale, hypernatremia sets in, and this, in turn, causes dehydration, that is, dehydration of the body. Typical symptoms: weight loss, skin laxity, constipation, drowsiness, hallucinations. The last stage before death - a person falls into a coma.

Torture with chicken balls

At first glance, it seems that the eggs are round and harmless. This is not so: they are oval and dangerous. Especially if you are not limited to five eggs a week. Nevertheless, torture with chicken eggs does not mean at all that the unfortunate person is fed with scrambled eggs until the level of cholesterol in the blood exceeds the norm. Torturing chicken eggs is much more inventive. She is mentioned in Leonid Solovyov's The Tale of Khoja Nasreddin and in several Arabic sources and looks like this.

A wide tube was inserted into the esophagus and several raw chicken eggs were stuffed into it. The shell perfectly resists the action of the digestive enzymes of the human stomach. Therefore, the eggs traveled through the intestines for a long time, leading to severe colic and painful defecation in the end. It is absolutely impossible to break a chicken egg, which is under the protection of muscles in the stomach or intestines.

A word to the doctor I would also add that due to its shape, the egg moves through the intestines rather slowly. After all, intestinal peristalsis - the pushing ability, expressed in wave-like contractions - is not designed for whole eggs, but for digested gruel. Such a situation is dangerous by the development of fecal peritonitis (inflammation), smoothly and painfully flowing into death. And there is also a small, but still probability, that when the egg moves through the esophagus, there will be sudden death from reflex cardiac arrest, since in a small area the egg will pass very close to the heart.

Boiled meat torture

It is known that it is better to prefer boiled meat to fried meat, and lean meat to a shiny piece of lard. But overeating meat, even boiled and fat-free, is not worth it. Chinese criminals who have experienced boiled meat torture would support this claim. If only they were alive.

Torture with boiled meat lasted about a month, and almost all this time the offender experienced severe suffering. He was locked in a narrow and low cage, in which he could only lie or sit crouched, drink clean water, and fed with carefully boiled meat without veins, fat and bones. A month later, a fresh corpse was taken out of the cage. By the way, in Chinese judicial reference books, where this torture is mentioned, there is a note stating that this torture is ineffective for representatives of some peoples, such as the Xiongnu, since they can live in these conditions for a very long time. Indeed, the Chinese, who ate mostly plant-based foods, were much more sensitive to such dietary changes than the Mongols or Huns, who from time immemorial ate pure meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A Word to the Doctor In this case, the tortured person may have not one, but several reasons for death. The first reason: a person may die due to insufficient production of digestive enzymes - pepsin and trypsin, which are necessary for a full digestion process. For the production of these enzymes, internal proteins will be used, which are not found in the meat entering the body, and this will lead to a malfunction in the functioning of the whole organism. The second reason: when heavy food enters the body, a person needs to move. Physical inactivity in this case is fraught with intestinal paresis, and there it is not far from the absorption of bacteria into the blood. And finally, such a "sitting in a cage" lifestyle, along with eating meat, can lead to an excess of nitrogenous products in the blood, that is, to azotemia. Its consequences are numerous: from tachycardia to swelling and uremia.

water torture

Don't worry if you can't drink the two liters of water a day that are supposedly necessary for your body to thrive. Of course, it is foolish to deny that in aqua sanitas, that is, in water, there is health. But we must not forget that sometimes in aqua mors, that is, in water - death (and not mors at all). European executioners of the 15th-18th centuries were perfectly familiar with this non-existent Latin truth.

In museums of torture throughout Europe, there is sometimes an unpresentable, boring thing - a wooden or copper funnel covered with shabby leather, which does not look at all against the background spectacular collars with spikes directed inward, or chipped planks. But, looking closer, you can see numerous dents on its narrow part. These are the teeth marks of the victims of water torture, which was considered “neat, humane and not violating decency” and therefore, by the way, was especially often applied to women who, for this reason, did not need to be either undressed or butchered to the detriment of Christian modesty. The victim was tied to a bench with his head raised, after which a funnel was forcibly inserted into her throat, and water was poured into the funnel. Much water. In addition to the feeling of suffocation and pain from the stomach bursting with liquid, water torture was long-playing, gradually leading the victim into a state of weakness, clouded consciousness and humility.

A word to the doctor As in the case of torture with salt, we are faced with a violation of the water-salt metabolism. Only this time the diagnostic criterion is different - a decrease in plasma sodium concentration. In addition, excess water leads to an increase in all fluid spaces of the body. Water intoxication sets in. An overdose of water leads to swelling of cells and swelling of tissues, causing nausea, vomiting and convulsions. And directly death occurs due to cerebral edema and respiratory arrest.

Not only food excesses are harmful to health. Here are a few tortures that demonstrate the need for moderation in all aspects of life. Well, almost everyone.

Drop Torture

The cinema of the 20th century has endowed us with many stereotypes. In particular, that walking in the rain, singing in the rain, and hugging in the rain is cool. Of course, it’s really cool to some extent, especially if you get out of the rain into a warm living room, where a fireplace is burning, mulled wine is boiling and a labrador is lying around (yes, another stereotype). In all other cases, prolonged dripping of water on an uncovered head is not welcome. And in European and Eastern sources, torture with drops was listed as one of the most effective. The victim was tied to a special chair. A flask was placed over the head, from which water dripped without stopping at regular intervals. Drop. A drop. A drop. A drop. A drop. A drop...

Word to the doctor

Temechko is one of the most vulnerable places in a person, so nerve impulses, experiencing even a slight impact in this area, transmit a signal of danger. Soon the signals become similar to pain sensations. An overvoltage occurs nervous system, breakdown of the regulatory mechanisms of the functioning of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, which leads to a violation of the regulation of vascular tone. In addition, prolonged and repeated damaging effects often lead to a change in the functional state (increased reactivity) of the pain system, which gives rise to its pathophysiological changes.

Insomnia torture

The temptation to not sleep is even stronger than the temptation to sleep, especially if life is full of bright, exciting events that you don’t want to miss. But if you approach the problem of insomnia from a medical point of view, then the popular call to "sleep off in a coffin" ceases to seem so innocent. Moreover, one of the most popular tortures that can break a person’s will is based precisely on lack of sleep.

Insomnia torture was especially loved in the 20th century, since for all its torment it leaves no traces and it is usually difficult for a prisoner to prove the fact of torture.

Writer Yevgenia Ginzburg, who spent 18 years in prisons, camps and exiles, wrote in her memoirs “The Steep Route” about how “sleepless weeks” were arranged in the cellars of the Lubyanka, preventing them from sleeping with endless interrogations. As a result, even people who could endure any physical pain and were not afraid of death signed everything they were told, because after a week of insomnia they had serious personality disorders and the ability to make volitional decisions completely disappeared. They began to sleep awake, practically lost control over reality, without even fixing it in their memory. After they were finally allowed to sleep, they most often did not remember the events of several last days and looked with amazement at their own signatures under confessions of espionage and sabotage.

A word to the doctor On wakefulness lasting more than 72 hours, the nervous systems of the body respond with a failure, which is expressed in a deficiency of neurotransmitters. In fact, sleep is a reboot for the whole body, and especially for the nervous systems. During sleep, due to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the errors accumulated during the day are eliminated. Accordingly, if the "reboot" did not occur, the person begins to behave inappropriately. The organism at this moment mobilizes internal resources in order to continue its existence, and it does not care what its owner signs there.

Torture by silence and darkness

Quiet evening at home without a computer, TV and gramophone - what could be worse? Only the torture of silence and darkness, which was used in the ancient Roman prison of Tullianum. There, in dark bag cells, criminals were kept whose guilt was insufficient for the death penalty, but too great for mere corporal punishment. They were placed in tightly closed cells with a good ventilation system. Food was served from the dark hall above - so that not a single ray of light penetrated the prison. The jailers entered this part of the prison barefoot or in felt shoes, they were strictly forbidden to speak with the prisoners.

A few months later, an ulcerated, toothless, often also blind crazy person was delivered from the bag, killing him in this way "only partially", as the sentence demanded. Lack of sunlight led to beriberi, primarily to vitamin D deficiency. The prisoner developed scurvy, a disease in which connective tissue loses its strength, teeth fall out, a characteristic hemorrhagic rash appears on the body, and the patient experiences constant severe pain in the joints. Darkness, silence and aching pain for months deprived even the most persistent and strong-willed person of a sense of reality. So you can safely exchange a quiet evening in dark room for a loud night at the club.

A word to the doctor The science of the soul is a delicate thing, and I am a surgeon. Can I go home already?

From a manual for inquisitors of 1697: "The accused must be drawn by the wrists with ropes to two iron rings set into the wall. The rings must be located at a distance of 6 inches (about 15 cm) from each other and 3 feet (about 90 cm) from floor. Two other iron rings are fixed in the floor at a minimum distance of 12 feet (3.6 m) from the wall, if possible. A rope is passed through these rings, stretching the interrogator's legs. The ropes should be taut and hold the interrogator's body as tightly as possible. He is repeatedly asked to tell the truth. To support the person being interrogated, a bench, 2 feet (60 cm) high, may be placed under the middle of his body. A large container should be nearby to collect the liquid that may be vomited by him ... ".

By pinching the victim's nose, she was forced to swallow 4 liters of water if an "ordinary interrogation" was carried out. If the interrogation was "extraordinary" the volume of water reached 8-9 liters.
In one case, it is described how as many as 2 buckets of water were poured into a woman's mouth.
During torture, the interrogated person's nostrils were closed and a liquid was poured into his mouth through a funnel, which he had to swallow, in some cases they used the torture bed shown in the figure, which did not allow the person to move. Sometimes vinegar was used instead of water, or even urine mixed with liquid stool.

Hot water, almost boiling water, was often poured in to increase the suffering of the victim.

Below I will give a description of such an interrogation given by Charles de Coster in his Ulenspiegel.
"... the executioner stripped her naked, shaved off all the hair on her body and examined everything to make sure she was not hiding any sorcery, laid her down and tied her with ropes to the bench. He covered her chest, stomach and hips with a wet cloth and then , lifting one end of the bench, began to pour hot water into Catalina - so much that she seemed to swell all over; then he put the bench down.
The judge asked if she confessed to the crime. She answered with a sign that she didn't. More poured into it hot water but Catalina spewed it all back."

The funnel was inserted into the victim's mouth and pinched over the nose, so that the person had no choice but to swallow the liquid poured into the mouth before taking a new breath. All this was repeated long enough to infuse the maximum amount of liquid into the stomach. Then the angle of the body of the accused was changed, he was laid on his back in a horizontal position and the weight of the full stomach squeezed the lungs and heart.

The feeling of lack of air and heaviness in the chest complemented the pain from a distended stomach. If this was not enough to force a confession, the executioners placed a board on the swollen stomach of the tortured and pressed on him, increasing the suffering of the tortured. Water torture was used especially often, because after it the body of the convict was in good enough condition to withstand a long painful execution.

This torture was used in our time by the Japanese militarists in prisoner of war camps. often they gave on the filled belly of the interrogated or trampled him with such force that they tore the stomach.

It is not known whether water torture is now forgotten, although it can be assumed that it is not.

The human body is made up of 55-78 percent water, depending on body size. To function properly, our body needs between one and seven liters of water a day to stay hydrated. Therefore, it is clear that water is a significant part of human life. However, under certain circumstances, water can extinguish your life, like a fading fire near a tent, and it can do this with a number of interesting ways.

10. Hypothermia

Hypothermia is a condition in which your body temperature drops below the temperature needed to maintain normal metabolism and bodily functions. limit for people normal temperature is 35.0°C. If you are exposed to cold and your body's internal mechanisms are unable to replenish the heat it needs to function properly, a drop in body temperature occurs. As the body temperature decreases, there are such characteristic symptoms like trembling and confusion. Body heat is lost faster under water than on land. A water temperature that would be perfectly acceptable as outside air temperature can lead to hypothermia. For example, water temperatures of 10°C can lead to death in as little as one hour, while water temperatures fluctuating near the freezing limit can lead to death in less than 15 minutes. A prime example of this phenomenon is what happened during the sinking of the Titanic (pictured above), in which most people caught in water temperatures hovering around zero degrees died within 15 to 30 minutes.

9. Scalding


Scalding is a form of burn that occurs when your skin comes into contact with a very hot liquid. Most scaldings are classified as first or second degree burns, but scalding may well lead to third or even fourth degree burns, especially with prolonged contact. Execution by boiling in liquid (pictured above) uses this principle. This is a method of execution in which a person dies by immersion in boiling water. Although it was not used as often as other methods, execution by boiling in liquid was used in many parts of Europe and Asia. Executions of this type were often carried out using a large vessel such as a cauldron or a hermetically sealed tub. Depending on the desired degree of cruelty, the victim was either immersed in water before the liquid was heated or immersed head first in boiling water.

Death in these cases was due to severe burns caused by the hot liquid. Burns from contact with boiling water appear on the arms, torso and legs. Prolonged contact with boiling water can lead to serious consequences, up to fourth-degree burns. The epidermis and dermis are destroyed, leading to complete destruction subcutaneous fat. In the end, the boiling water will expose the muscles, which will lead to violations of large arteries and veins. Scalding deaths also happen by accident when people underestimate the temperature in natural hot springs and decide to jump in and swim in them.

8. Avalanche


Ice is just water frozen to solid state. In nature, such a phenomenon can be found everywhere, take, for example, snowflakes. Snowflakes may be harmless on their own, but their power grows with their number. An avalanche is a large and potentially deadly mass of snow moving rapidly down a slope. Avalanches are usually caused by mechanical failures in the snowpack where the pressure forces on the snow exceed its cohesive forces. Once the avalanche begins, avalanches usually accelerate rapidly and grow in mass and volume, carrying more and more snow with them.

In 85.7 percent of cases, avalanche deaths are due to suffocation. If you get caught in an avalanche and manage to rip open some of the air around your face while the avalanche has creaked to a halt, the heat from your breath will soon freeze over the cavity and cut off the rescue air. This impenetrable ice mask» can cause you to suffocate within half an hour. Less than half of those who were completely inundated by the avalanche, and none of those who were inundated by an avalanche at a depth of more than two meters, survived to tell about it. During the First World War, according to statistics, about 40,000 - 80,000 soldiers died as a result of avalanches during military operations in the Alps on the Austro-Italian front.

6. Urinary retention... in a sense


Water is an essential part of human survival, and drinking it inevitably leads to urination. Let's hope this point dispels the curious medical myth that you can die from holding urine and forcing yourself not to urinate. Indirectly, you can of course die from a urinary tract infection caused (which can lead to death), but you can't die from a ruptured bladder because you didn't go to the bathroom. The sphincters of your urethra make it physically impossible for urine to accumulate in your bladder to the point of rupture. The kidneys and ureters cannot produce enough pressure to rupture the bladder. If something interferes with urination, the kidneys fail first. In the event of a person attempting to delay urination, with too much fluid in the bladder, the body will fiercely protect the kidneys, causing the urethral sphincters to fail, causing the person to urinate.

Contrary to popular belief, Tycho Brahe did not die from “retaining urination for festive table out of courtesy." The actual cause of his death is a kidney stone that blocked his ability to urinate. The blockage led first to kidney failure and ultimately to death.

5. Dangerous driving conditions


There are a number of reasons why driving in the rain is potentially deadly. Rain makes roads slippery, especially when it has not rained for a long time. This is because fatty substances such as lubricants and oil drip from cars onto the road, and these substances accumulate on the road surface until they are washed away. The first rain can dilute these greasy materials, creating an oily film on the road surface that can make driving very dangerous. Long, heavy rain It can also cause deep puddles to form on the road surface, which can cause your car to essentially hydroplan as it skims through the water. Lightly drained roads can be covered in huge puddles of water that may not seem serious or deep until you drive into them and your car spins out of control. In addition, poor visibility caused by heavy rains is a serious threat, as it will make it harder for you to distinguish between oncoming cars, pedestrians, and road hazards. In the United States alone, more than 3,000 people a year die from rain-driving accidents.

4. Death by electric shock

Although pure water does not conduct electricity by itself (you probably didn't know that!), any impurities, such as salt, can make it an extremely effective conductor. When salts dissolve in water, they separate into positive Na ions and negative Cl ions. These opposite charges, like the opposite poles of a battery, create the potential for a conductive effect. The conductive properties of water make it very dangerous, as it allows electrical current to pass quickly through it and shock any unsuspecting person in contact with the water.

An electric shock occurs when a part comes into contact human body with any source of electricity that is capable of transmitting a significant discharge through the skin, muscles, or hair. Large currents passing through the body prevent the shock victim from releasing the energized object. Even larger currents can cause cardiac arrhythmias, tissue damage, and death. For example, in 2012, two boys were electrocuted while swimming in a lake in Knoxville, Tennessee. As it turned out, the houseboat, which was nearby, had frayed electrical wiring, and one of the exposed cables came into contact with the water of the lake. Five adults who jumped into the water to help the boys also experienced electrical shocks.

3 Chinese water torture

Chinese water torture is a process in which water is slowly dripped onto a person's forehead, driving the bound victim insane. The creation of this type of water torture is attributed to Hippolytus de Marsiliis, who was born in Italy in 1451. Observing how, over time, falling, one after another, drops of water gouged out a recess in the stone, he decided to apply the same tactic on a person. The term "Chinese water torture" was coined simply to give the method a sense of ambivalent mystique. The documented process of this torture during the Spanish Inquisition is as follows: “Victims were tied to a chair so that they could not move, then cold or warm water was slowly dripped onto a small area of ​​​​their body, usually on the forehead. It was concluded that the forehead was the most suitable part bodies for this torture because of its sensitivity: the victims could see each drop of water flying down, and after a certain amount of time, they gradually went crazy as a depression formed in the center of their foreheads.

2. Tsunami


A tsunami is a series of waves caused by the movement of a large volume of water, usually in an ocean or large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, iceberg breaks, meteorite impacts, and other disturbances above or below the water level can cause tsunamis. While everyday wind waves are (crest to ridge) about 100 meters long and about 2 meters high, a tsunami wave in the deep ocean is about 200 kilometers long! Yes, yes, you read it right. Moreover, such a wave also moves at a speed of 800 kilometers per hour.

Tsunamis cause damage in two ways: by hitting a wall of water on high speed and destroying everything in its path, thanks to the power of a large volume of water going back into the ocean and dragging it into the ocean a large number of debris, and even those waves that do not look big can do this. Although the impact of tsunamis is limited to coastal areas, their destructive power can be enormous and they can affect the entire ocean basin. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. It has killed more than 230,000 people in 14 Indian Ocean countries.

1. Water poisoning

Water poisoning, also known as water intoxication or dilutional hyponatremia, is a potentially fatal brain disorder that can occur when normal balance electrolytes in the body goes beyond safe limits due to over-hydration. Under normal circumstances, accidental drinking of excessive amounts of water is exceptionally rare. Almost all deaths associated with water intoxication in healthy people occurred either during the contests "who will drink drinking water most of all, in which people try to consume a large amount of water; or during long and intense workouts during which electrolytes are not replenished properly but are nevertheless consumed great amount liquids. In addition, there was previously a form of torture known as hydrotherapy, in which the victim was forced to drink excessive amounts of water, resulting in water intoxication.

Water, like any other substance, can be considered a poison when consumed in excess over a period of time. For example, in 2003, Walter Dean Jennings, a freshman in the history department at SUNY Plattsburgh, died during a campus fraternity initiation. In my last night tests, an 18-year-old was forced to drink massive amounts of water through a funnel, causing his brain to swell from water intoxication, eventually leading to his death.

1. Chinese bamboo torture.
The infamous way of the terrible Chinese execution all over the world. Perhaps a legend, because to this day not a single documentary evidence has survived that this torture was actually used.
Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants on Earth. Some of its Chinese varieties can grow as much as a meter in a day. Some historians believe that the deadly bamboo torture was used not only by the ancient Chinese, but also by the Japanese military during World War II.

How it works?
1) Live bamboo sprouts are sharpened with a knife to make sharp "spears";
2) The victim is suspended horizontally, back or belly over a bed of young pointed bamboo;
3) Bamboo grows rapidly in height, pierce into the skin of the martyr and sprout through his abdominal cavity, the person dies very long and painfully.

2. Iron Maiden
Like torture with bamboo, many researchers consider the "iron maiden" a terrible legend. Perhaps these metal sarcophagi with sharp spikes inside only frightened the defendants, after which they confessed to anything. The "iron maiden" was invented at the end of the 18th century, i.e. already at the end of the Catholic Inquisition.

How it works?
1) The victim is stuffed into the sarcophagus and the door is closed;
2) The spikes driven into the inner walls of the "iron maiden" are rather short and do not pierce the victim through, but only cause pain. The investigator, as a rule, in a matter of minutes receives a confession, which the arrested person only has to sign;
3) If the prisoner shows fortitude and continues to be silent, long nails, knives and rapiers are pushed through special holes in the sarcophagus. The pain becomes simply unbearable;
4) The victim never confesses to his deed, then she was locked in a sarcophagus for a long time, where she died from blood loss;
5) In some models of the “iron maiden”, spikes were provided at eye level in order to quickly poke them out.

3. Skafism
The name of this torture comes from the Greek "skafium", which means "trough". Skafism was popular in ancient Persia. During the torture, the victim, most often a prisoner of war, was devoured alive by various insects and their larvae that were not indifferent to human flesh and blood.

How it works?
1) The prisoner is placed in a shallow trough and wrapped in chains.
2) He is force-fed with large amounts of milk and honey, which causes the victim to develop copious diarrhea that attracts insects.
3) A prisoner, shabby, smeared with honey, is allowed to swim in a trough in a swamp, where there are many hungry creatures.
4) Insects immediately start the meal, as the main dish - the living flesh of the martyr.

4. Terrible pear
“There is a pear - you can’t eat it,” it is said about the medieval European tool for “educating” blasphemers, liars, women who gave birth out of wedlock, and gay men. Depending on the crime, the tormentor put the pear into the sinner's mouth, anus or vagina.

How it works?
1) The tool, consisting of pointed pear-shaped leaf-shaped segments, is thrust into the client's desired hole in the body;
2) The executioner slowly turns the screw on the top of the pear, while the “leaves”-segments bloom inside the martyr, causing hellish pain;
3) After the pear is opened, the completely guilty person receives internal injuries incompatible with life and dies in terrible agony, if he has not already fallen into unconsciousness.

5. Copper bull
The design of this death unit was developed by the ancient Greeks, or to be more precise, the coppersmith Perill, who sold his terrible bull to the Sicilian tyrant Falaris, who simply adored torturing and killing people in unusual ways.
Inside the copper statue, through a special door, they pushed a living person.
So…
Falaris first tested the unit on its creator, the greedy Perilla. Subsequently, Falaris himself was roasted in a bull.

How it works?
1) The victim is closed in a hollow copper statue of a bull;
2) A fire is kindled under the belly of the bull;
3) The victim is roasted alive, like a ham in a frying pan;
4) The structure of the bull is such that the cries of the martyr come from the mouth of the statue, like a bull's roar;
5) Jewelry and amulets were made from the bones of the executed, which were sold in the bazaars and were in great demand ..

6. Torture by rats
Rat torture was very popular in ancient China. However, we will look at the rat punishment technique developed by the leader of the 16th century Dutch Revolution, Didrik Sonoy.

How it works?
1) The naked martyr is laid on a table and tied;
2) Large, heavy cages with hungry rats are placed on the prisoner's stomach and chest. The bottom of the cells is opened with a special valve;
3) Hot coals are placed on top of the cages to stir up the rats;
4) Trying to escape from the heat of hot coals, rats gnaw their way through the flesh of the victim.

7. Cradle of Judas
The Cradle of Judas was one of the most painful torture machines in the arsenal of the Suprema - the Spanish Inquisition. The victims usually died from the infection, due to the fact that the peaked seat of the torture machine was never disinfected. The cradle of Judas, as an instrument of torture, was considered "loyal", because it did not break bones and did not tear ligaments.

How it works?
1) The victim, whose hands and feet are tied, is seated on the top of a pointed pyramid;
2) The top of the pyramid pierces the anus or vagina;
3) With the help of ropes, the victim is gradually lowered lower and lower;
4) Torture continues for several hours or even days, until the victim dies from powerlessness and pain, or from blood loss due to rupture of soft tissues.

8. Elephant trampling
For several centuries, this execution was practiced in India and Indochina. The elephant is very easy to train and to teach him to trample the guilty victim with his huge feet is a matter of several days.

How it works?
1. The victim is tied to the floor;
2. A trained elephant is brought into the hall to crush the head of the martyr;
3. Sometimes before the "control in the head" animals squeeze the victims' arms and legs in order to amuse the audience.

9. Rack
Probably the most famous, and unsurpassed in its kind, death machine called "rack". It was first experienced around 300 AD. on the Christian martyr Vincent of Zaragoza.
Anyone who survived the rack could no longer use their muscles and turned into a helpless vegetable.

How it works?
1. This instrument of torture is a special bed with rollers at both ends, on which ropes were wound, holding the wrists and ankles of the victim. When the rollers rotated, the ropes pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body;
2. Ligaments in the hands and feet of the victim are stretched and torn, bones pop out of the joints.
3. Another version of the rack was also used, called strappado: it consisted of 2 pillars dug into the ground and connected by a crossbar. The interrogated person was tied with his hands behind his back and lifted by the rope tied to his hands. Sometimes a log or other weights were attached to his bound legs. At the same time, the hands of a person raised on a rack twisted back and often came out of their joints, so that the convict had to hang on twisted arms. They were on the rack from several minutes to an hour or more. This type of rack was used most often in Western Europe.
4. In Russia, a suspect raised on a rack was beaten with a whip on the back, and “applied to the fire”, that is, they drove burning brooms over the body.
5. In individual cases the executioner broke the ribs of a man hanging on a rack with red-hot tongs.

10. Paraffin in the bladder
A savage form of torture, the actual use of which has not been established.

How it works?
1. Candle paraffin was rolled out by hand into a thin sausage, which was injected through the urethra;
2. Paraffin slipped into bladder, where the precipitation of solid salts and other nasty things began on it.
3. The victim soon developed kidney problems and died of acute kidney failure. On average, death occurred in 3-4 days.

11. Shiri (camel cap)
A monstrous fate awaited those whom the Zhuanzhuans (the union of nomadic Turkic-speaking peoples) took into their slavery. They destroyed the memory of the slave with a terrible torture - by putting Shiri on the head of the victim. Usually this fate befell young guys captured in battles.

How it works?
1. First, the slaves shaved their heads, carefully scraping out every hair under the root.
2. The executioners slaughtered the camel and skinned its carcass, first of all, separating its heaviest, densest part.
3. Having divided the neck into pieces, it is immediately in doubles pulled over the shaved heads of prisoners. These pieces, like a plaster, stuck around the heads of slaves. This meant putting on wide.
4. After putting on the width, the neck of the doomed was shackled in a special wooden block so that the subject could not touch his head to the ground. In this form they were taken away from crowded places so that no one would hear their heart-rending cries, and they threw it in open field, co hands tied and feet, in the sun, without water and without food.
5. The torture lasted 5 days.
6. Only a few remained alive, and the rest died not from hunger or even from thirst, but from unbearable, inhuman torments caused by drying out, shrinking rawhide camel skin on the head. Inexorably shrinking under the rays of the scorching sun, the width squeezed, squeezing the shaved head of a slave like an iron hoop. Already on the second day, the shaved hair of the martyrs began to sprout. Coarse and straight Asian hair sometimes grew into rawhide, in most cases, finding no way out, the hair bent and again went into the scalp with its ends, causing even greater suffering. A day later, the man lost his mind. Only on the fifth day did the Zhuanzhuans come to check whether any of the prisoners had survived. If at least one of the tortured was caught alive, it was believed that the goal was achieved. .
7. The one who was subjected to such a procedure either died, unable to withstand the torture, or lost his memory for life, turned into a mankurt - a slave who does not remember his past.
8. The skin of one camel was enough for five or six widths.

12. Implantation of metals
A very strange means of torture-execution was used in the Middle Ages.

How it works?
1. A deep incision was made on a person’s legs, where a piece of metal (iron, lead, etc.) was placed, after which the wound was sutured.
2. Over time, the metal oxidized, poisoning the body and causing terrible pain.
3. Most often, the poor fellows tore the skin in the place where the metal was sewn up and died from blood loss.

13. Dividing a person into two parts
This terrible execution originated in Thailand. The most hardened criminals were subjected to it - mostly murderers.

How it works?
1. The accused is placed in a hoodie woven from lianas, and he is stabbed with sharp objects;
2. After that, his body is quickly cut into two parts, the upper half is immediately placed on a red-hot copper grate; this operation stops the blood and prolongs the life of the upper part of the person.

A small addition: This torture is described in the book of the Marquis de Sade "Justine, or the successes of vice." This is a small excerpt from a large piece of text where de Sade allegedly describes the torture of the peoples of the world. But why supposedly? According to many critics, the Marquis was very fond of lying. He had an extraordinary imagination and a couple of manias, so this torture, like some others, could be a figment of his imagination. But the field of this is not worth referring to Donatien Alphonse as Baron Munchausen. This torture, in my opinion, if it did not exist before, is quite realistic. If, of course, a person is drugged with painkillers before this (opiates, alcohol, etc.), so that he does not die before his body touches the bars.

14. Inflation with air through the anus
A terrible torture in which a person is pumped with air through the anus. There is evidence that in Rus' even Peter the Great himself sinned with this.
Most often, thieves were executed in this way.

How it works?
1. The victim was tied hand and foot.
2. Then they took cotton and stuffed the ears, nose and mouth of the poor fellow with it.
3. In anus it was inserted by bellows, with the help of which a huge amount of air was pumped into a person, as a result of which he became like a balloon.
3. After that, I plugged his anus with a piece of cotton.
4. Then they opened two veins above his eyebrows, from which all the blood flowed under great pressure.
5. Sometimes a bound person was placed naked on the roof of the palace and shot with arrows until he died.
6. Prior to 1970, this method was often used in Jordanian prisons.

15. Polledro
The Neapolitan executioners lovingly called this torture "polledro" - "colt" (polledro) and were proud that it was first used in their native city. Although history did not preserve the name of its inventor, they said that he was an expert in horse breeding and came up with an unusual device to pacify his horses.
Only a few decades later, lovers of mocking people turned the horse breeder's device into a real torture machine for people.
The machine was a wooden frame, similar to a ladder, the transverse rungs of which had very sharp corners, so that when a person was placed on them with his back, they crashed into the body from the back of the head to the heels. The staircase ended with a huge wooden spoon, in which, like a cap, they put their heads.

How it works?
1. Holes were drilled on both sides of the frame and in the “cap”, ropes were threaded into each of them. The first of them was tightened on the forehead of the tortured, the last tied thumbs legs. As a rule, there were thirteen ropes, but for especially stubborn ones, the number was increased.
2. Special fixtures the ropes were pulled tighter and tighter - it seemed to the victims that, having crushed the muscles, they dug into the bones.

16. Dead man's bed (modern China)
The "dead man's bed" torture is used by the Chinese Communist Party mainly on those prisoners who try to protest their illegal imprisonment through a hunger strike. In most cases, these are prisoners of conscience who went to prison for their beliefs.

How it works?
1. The hands and feet of a naked prisoner are tied to the corners of the bed, on which instead of a mattress wooden plank with cut hole. A bucket for excrement is placed under the hole. Often, ropes are tightly tied to the bed and the body of a person so that he cannot move at all. In this position, a person is continuously from several days to weeks.
2. In some prisons, such as Shenyang City No. 2 Prison and Jilin City Prison, the police still place a hard object under the victim's back to increase the suffering.
3. It also happens that the bed is placed vertically and for 3-4 days a person hangs, stretched by the limbs.
4. Force-feeding is added to these torments, which is carried out with the help of a tube inserted through the nose into the esophagus, into which liquid food is poured.
5. This procedure is done mainly by prisoners on the orders of the guards, and not by health workers. They do it very rudely and unprofessionally, often causing more serious damage. internal organs person.
6. Those who have gone through this torture say that it causes displacement of the vertebrae, joints of the arms and legs, as well as numbness and blackening of the limbs, which often leads to disability.

17. Collar (Modern China)
One of the medieval tortures used in modern Chinese prisons is the wearing of a wooden collar. It is put on a prisoner, which is why he cannot walk or stand normally.
The collar is a board from 50 to 80 cm long, from 30 to 50 cm wide and 10 - 15 cm thick. There are two holes for the legs in the middle of the collar.
The shackled victim is difficult to move, must crawl into the bed, and usually must sit or lie down, as the upright position causes pain and injury to the legs. Without assistance, a person with a collar cannot go to eat or go to the toilet. When a person gets out of bed, the collar not only presses on the legs and heels, causing pain, but its edge clings to the bed and prevents the person from returning to it. At night, the prisoner is not able to turn around, and in winter time a short blanket does not cover the legs.
An even worse form of this torture is called "crawling with a wooden collar." The guards put a collar on the man and order him to crawl on the concrete floor. If he stops, he is hit on the back with a police baton. An hour later, fingers, toenails and knees bleed profusely, while the back is covered with wounds from blows.

18. Impaling
Terrible wild execution that came from the East.
The essence of this execution was that a person was placed on his stomach, one sat on him to prevent him from moving, the other held him by the neck. A person was inserted into the anus with a stake, which was then driven in with a mallet; then they drove a stake into the ground. The weight of the body forced the stake to go deeper and deeper, and finally it came out under the armpit or between the ribs.

19. Spanish water torture
To the best way perform the procedure of this torture, the accused was placed on one of the varieties of the rack or on a special big table rising middle part. After the victim's hands and feet were tied to the edges of the table, the executioner went to work in one of several ways. One of these methods was that the victim was forced to swallow a large amount of water with a funnel, then beaten on the inflated and arched stomach. Another form involved placing a rag tube down the victim's throat, through which water was slowly poured in, causing the victim to bloat and suffocate. If that wasn't enough, the tube was pulled out, causing internal damage, and then reinserted and the process repeated. Sometimes they used torture cold water. In this case, the accused lay naked on the table for hours under a jet of icy water. It is interesting to note that this kind of torture was regarded as light, and confessions obtained in this way were accepted by the court as voluntary and given to the defendants without the use of torture. Most often, these tortures were used by the Spanish Inquisition in order to knock out confessions from heretics and witches.

20. Chinese water torture
The person was seated in a very cold room, they tied him so that he could not move his head, and in total darkness cold water was dripped on his forehead very slowly. After a few days, the person froze or went crazy.

21. Spanish chair
This instrument of torture was widely used by the executioners of the Spanish Inquisition and was a chair made of iron, on which the prisoner was seated, and his legs were enclosed in stocks attached to the legs of the chair. When he was in such a completely helpless position, a brazier was placed under his feet; with hot coals, so that the legs began to slowly roast, and in order to prolong the suffering of the poor fellow, the legs were poured with oil from time to time.

Another version of the Spanish chair was often used, which was a metal throne, to which the victim was tied and a fire was made under the seat, roasting the buttocks. The well-known poisoner La Voisin was tortured on such an armchair during the famous Poisoning Case in France.

22. GRIDIRON (Grate for torture by fire)
Torture of Saint Lawrence on the gridiron.
This type of torture is often mentioned in the lives of saints - real and fictional, but there is no evidence that the gridiron "survived" until the Middle Ages and had at least little circulation in Europe. It is usually described as a simple metal grate 6 feet long and two and a half feet wide, set horizontally on legs to allow a fire to be built underneath.
Sometimes the gridiron was made in the form of a rack in order to be able to resort to combined torture.
Saint Lawrence was martyred on a similar grid. This torture was rarely resorted to. Firstly, it was easy enough to kill the interrogated person, and secondly, there were a lot of simpler, but no less cruel tortures.

23. Pectoral
Pectoral in ancient times was called breastplate women's jewelry in the form of a pair of carved gold or silver bowls, often strewn with precious stones. It was worn like a modern bra and fastened with chains.
By a mocking analogy with this decoration, the savage instrument of torture used by the Venetian Inquisition was named.
In 1985, the pectoral was red-hot and, taking it with tongs, put it on the chest of the tortured woman and held until she confessed. If the accused persisted, the executioners heated up the pectoral, cooled by the living body again, and continued the interrogation.

Very often, after this barbaric torture, charred, torn holes remained in place of the woman's breasts.

24. Tickle Torture
This seemingly harmless influence was a terrible torture. With prolonged tickling, a person’s nerve conduction increased so much that even the most light touch caused at first twitching, laughter, and then turned into terrible pain. If such torture was continued for a long time, then after a while spasms of the respiratory muscles arose and, in the end, the tortured person died from suffocation.

At the most simple version the interrogated were tortured by tickling sensitive places either simply with their hands or with hairbrushes and brushes. Rigid bird feathers were popular. Usually tickled under the armpits, heels, nipples, inguinal folds, genitals, women also under the breasts.

In addition, torture was often used with the use of animals that licked some tasty substance from the heels of the interrogated. A goat was often used, because its very hard tongue, adapted for eating herbs, caused very strong irritation.

There was also a form of beetle tickling, most common in India. With her, a small bug was planted on the head of the penis of a man or on the nipple of a woman and covered with half a nut shell. After some time, the tickling caused by the movement of the legs of an insect over a living body became so unbearable that the interrogated person confessed to anything ...

25. Crocodile
These tubular metal tongs "Crocodile" were red-hot and used to tear the penis of the tortured. At first, with a few caressing movements (often performed by women), or with a tight bandage, they achieved a stable hard erection and then the torture began.

26. Serrated crusher
These serrated iron tongs slowly crushed the testicles of the interrogated.
Something similar was widely used in Stalinist and fascist prisons.

27. A terrible tradition.
Actually, this is not torture, but an African rite, but, in my opinion, it is very cruel. Girls from 3-6 years old without anesthesia were simply scraped out the external genitalia. Thus, the girl did not lose the ability to have children, but was forever deprived of the opportunity to experience sexual desire and enjoyment. This rite is done “for the benefit” of women, so that they will never be tempted to cheat on their husband ...

28. Blood Eagle
One of the most ancient tortures, during which the victim was tied face down and his back was opened, the ribs were broken off at the spine and spread apart like wings. In Scandinavian legends, it is stated that during such an execution, salt was sprinkled on the wounds of the victim.

Many historians claim that this torture was used by pagans against Christians, others are sure that spouses convicted of treason were punished in this way, and still others claim that the bloody eagle is just a terrible legend.