Comprachicos

The most common methods said to be used in this practice included stunting children's growth by physical restraint, muzzling their faces to deform them, slitting their eyes, dislocating their joints, and causing their bones to malform.

[1] The term, a compound Spanish neologism meaning "child-buyers", was coined by Victor Hugo in The Man Who Laughs, an 1869 novel which triggered moral panics over supposed "cripple factories" across Europe.

[citation needed] Victor Hugo's novel The Man Who Laughs is the story of a young aristocrat kidnapped and disfigured by his captors to display a permanent malicious grin.

"[3] The term comprachico is very uncommonly used in modern English except in reference or allusion to the antiquated folklore,[citation needed] but similar stories do exist in the English-speaking world.

For instance, a tale circulating since at least the 1980s tells of a Japanese bride who disappears during her honeymoon in Europe; years later her husband discovers she has been abducted, mutilated, and forced to work in a freak show.