Chinese water torture
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chinese water torture is the popular name for a method of water torture in which water is slowly dripped onto a person's forehead, driving the victim insane. This form of torture was first described under a different name by Hippolytus de Marsiliis in Italy in the 16th century.
[edit] Evidence of use
There is no evidence that this form of torture was ever used by the Chinese. The popularity of the term "Chinese water torture" may have arisen from Harry Houdini's Chinese Water Torture Cell (a feat of escapology introduced around 1913 which entailed Houdini being bound and suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, from which he escaped), together with the Fu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer that were popular in the 1930s (in which the evil Fu Manchu subjected his victims to various ingenious tortures, such as the wire jacket). It is also thought by many that the term "Chinese water torture" comes from the same set of terms as "Chinese fire drill" and "Chinese whispers", where the word "Chinese" was originally used by the Victorians as slang for "confusing" or "containing erratic qualities".
The Discovery Channel series Mythbusters investigated Chinese water torture and found that dripping water on the forehead, by itself, was not particularly stressful. Immobilizing the subject along with a fixed variable water drop schedule proved the most stressful of the methods they tried, and cold water intensified the effect.
