Breast Rippers
Some tortures were devised with women specifically in mind. Mastectomy was one of them. Although both men and women could have the skin torn off them with red, or white, hot pincers, mastectomy was a distinctly feminine device.
Cold or red-hot, the four claws slowly ripped to formless masses the breasts of countless women condemned for heresy, blasphemy, adultery and many other "libidinous acts", self-induced abortion, witchcraft and other crimes. In various places at various times –in some regions of France and Germany until the early nineteenth century– a"bite" with a red-hot ripper was inflicted upon one breast of unmarried mothers, often whilst their child, splattered with maternal blood, writhed on the ground at their feet.
The Spider
This was heated until the iron was red and used to mutilate and tear a woman's breasts off.
This harsh and repulsive punishment imposed on women was obviously intended to degrade the victim. At that time it was rarely carried out. In the most comprehensive manual of the time, which deals with all the customary 'punishments to life and limb,' it is mentioned only as a historical item--a form of torture practiced in the days when Christians were being persecuted.
Anatomists unanimously agree that the female breasts are extremely sensitive, on account of the refinement of the veins, of which the heathen tyrants duly took note in their persecution of Christians, inflicting agonizing wounds to the breast of those females that stood by their Christian faith, ripping and tearing the same, and in the end even cutting them off.
Mastectomy first became popular in 1599 Bavaria. The most famous case is that of Anna Pappenheimer. After already being tortured with the strappado, a public demonstration was in order. Anna was stripped, her flesh torn off with red-hot pincers, and her breasts cut off. According to the reports of the chroniclers, Anna's severed breasts were rubbed around the mouths of her children. This was a savage parody of breastfeeding. The brutal irony could hardly be missed by the spectators
Besides the punitive function, breast-ripping also served as an interrogation and juridical procedure.
