Used to tear open the victim's skin, this weapon could rip through anything, including muscle and bone. The victim was tied up naked, sometimes in public, and then the torturers begin mutilating them. Usually starting on the limbs and working inward, the neck and face were always saved for last.
Warning: the article
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by redsfaithful.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/10/19
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2008/11/bullies-may-be-wired-in-brain-to-enjoy-others-pain.html#more
Doctors who participate in state executions in the U.S. are considered unethical and the physician medical groups, responsible for licensure of doctors, tell members not to be at executions (not even to declare death certifications) or lose their license to practice medicine. There's a really good post on execution doctors at:
http://www.ethicsoup.com/2008/11/execution-doctors-unethical-whether-hanging-electrocution-gas-or-lethan-injection.html#more
I think I read a story about Lethal Injection methods in the US being questioned now. Something about being consciously suffocating and not being able to scream out rather than just going to sleep then having your systems shut down. Id take guillotine over that.
I had never herd of the metal bull form of punishment. hat one sounds just absolutely brutal. It's even worse than burning at the stake because you're isolated all by yourself and left to think only about the pain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel
knowledge is power.
I like the disclaimer AFTER you have already described the Spanish Tickler. :D
That has no place in this top 15..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaphism