List of methods of torture

There are many variants of the chair, though they all have one thing in common: spikes cover the back, arm-rests, seat, leg-rests, and foot-rests.

To avoid movement, the victim's wrists were tied to the chair or, in one version, two bars pushed the arms against arm-rests for the spikes to penetrate the flesh even further.

In some versions, there were holes under the chair's bottom where the torturer placed coal to cause severe burns while the victim still remained conscious.

[3] The rack is a torture device that consists of an oblong, rectangular, usually wooden frame, slightly raised from the ground, with a roller at one, or both, ends, having at one end a fixed bar to which the legs were fastened, and at the other a movable bar to which the hands were tied.

They often had spikes that penetrated the victim's back - as the limbs were pulled apart, so was his or her spinal cord increasing not only in physical pain but the psychological one of being handicapped at best, too.

The Brazen Bull was invented in Ancient Greece, by Perillos of Athens as a hollow bull-shaped statue in which victims were roasted alive over a fire.

[citation needed] The Greek had specially engineered tubes to make the screams of the victims sound like the noise of a bull.

The device gradually became more sophisticated, until the Greeks invented a complex system of tubes in order to make the victim's screams sound more like an infuriated bull, and also made it so the smoke from it rose in clouds of incense.

Even though this torture was not used during the Middle Ages as it was used earlier by the Greek and Romans, a simple form of boiling was still used in Central Europe, without the use of the bull.

A pear shaped instrument, consisting of four leaves that slowly separated from each other as the torturer turned the screw at the top.

"[4] They were also discussed in a book by Eldridge and Watts, superintendent of police and chief inspector of the detective bureau in Boston, Massachusetts (1897).

There is no doubt, however, of the fashioning of a pear-shaped gag which has been largely used in former days by robbers in Europe, and may still be employed to some extent.

Often, some form of a plug, or more simply, a piece of fruit, was placed in the victim's mouth and nose beforehand, so they couldn't get a good breath before being dunked.

While supposed witches were commonly tortured using this method, thieves and murderers could be subjected to it in order to extract a confession.

In England, statute 22 passed in 1532 by Henry VIII, made boiling a legal form of capital punishment.

During cold days and nights, the chill, as well as lack of protection from the wind, could easily sap a victim's body heat.

The holes in the grating were also big enough to allow carrion birds, and the occasional rat, to enter and pluck at a victim's skin and eyes.