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The thumbscrew is a torture instrument which was first used in early modern Europe. It is a simple vice, sometimes with protruding studs on the interior surfaces. The crushing bars were sometimes lined with sharp metal points to puncture the nails and savagely stimulate the flesh of the nail beds. While the most common design operated upon a single thumb or big toe, cunningly-designed variants of the device could accommodate, for example, both big toes, all five fingers of one hand, or all ten toes.

Other terminology

The thumbscrew was also referred to as thumbkin or thumbikin (1675–1685), the "kin" part being a diminutive suffix of nouns. An alternate spelling was thumbikens.Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page). During this period (mid-18th century), Thomas Clarkson carried thumbscrews with him to further his cause for the abolition of the slave trade and later emancipation of slaves in the British Empire. He hoped to, and did, inspire empathy with the display of this and other torture devices used on slaves. They were used on slave ships, as witnessed and described by Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano.

In popular culture

The thumbscrew is mentioned by name by Professor Moody in The Goblet of Fire, part of the Harry Potter book series, written by J.K Rowling in 1997, as a torture device, along with knives and the Cruciatus Curse.

The thumbscrew is shown in use in various media, including The Headsman, a 2005 film about Europe's 16th-century Inquisition starring Steven Berkoff and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau.

References

1. Held, Robert. Inquisition: A Bilingual Guide to the Exhibition of Torture Instruments from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Era, Florence: Qua d'Arno, 1985.
2. Sair, Richard; Hirsch, Arnold E., ed. The Book of Torture and Execution: A Historical Analysis of the Science of Brutality, Toronto: Golden Books, 1944.
3. "Thumbkin". Dictionary.com. 2015. Retrieved June 2, 2015.
4. Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: The British Struggle to Abolish Slavery (Basingstoke: Pan Macmillan, 2005)
5. Smith, Mary-Antoinette (2010). Thomas Clarkson and Ottobah Cugoano: Essays on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species. Broadview Press. p. 36. ISBN 9781460402054. Retrieved August 11, 2014.
6. Larsen, A E (July 12, 2014). "The Headsman: No One Expects the Spanish Inquisition". Retrieved June 2, 2015. Most of the tortures we see in the film are genuine practices, such as strappado and the use of pillywinks.

External links

• Media related to Thumbscrews (torture) at Wikimedia Commons

• Modern instruments of torture
• European instruments of torture