Choke Pear (torture)
The choke pear (or pear of anguish) is the modern name for a type of instrument displayed in some museums, consisting of a metal body (usually pear-shaped) divided into spoon-like segments that could be spread apart by turning a screw. The museum descriptions and some recent sources assert that the devices were used either as a gag, to prevent people from speaking, or as an instrument of torture. The instrument was inserted into the victim's mouth, and then slowly spread apart as the screw was turned.
Read more about Choke Pear (torture): Origins, Museum Pieces
Famous quotes containing the words choke and/or pear:
“Most modern reproducers of life, even including the camera, really repudiate it. We gulp down evil, choke at good.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“It is commonly said by farmers, that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear, than a poor one; so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)