BB-047 / Punishment
Rat Torture
The Act
In reported historical cases, rats were placed on or near a restrained victim and induced (sometimes by heat) to burrow into the body. The method appears in accounts from several eras and regions, though its frequency is debated.
The Response
Like many extreme torture methods, rat torture declined with the formal abolition of judicial torture in most European systems during the Enlightenment. It survives mainly in historical literature and popular imagination.