Water cure (torture)

Water cure is a form of torture in which the victim is forced to drink large quantities of water in a short time, resulting in gastric distension, water intoxication, and possibly death.^[1][2][3]

Often the victim has the mouth forced or wedged open, the nose closed with pincers and a funnel or strip of cloth forced down the throat. The victim has to drink all the water (or other liquids such as bile or urine) poured into the funnel to avoid drowning. The stomach fills until near bursting, swelling up in the process and is sometimes beaten until the victim vomits and the torture begins again.

While this use of water as a form of torture is documented back to at least the 15th century,^[4] the first use of the phrase water cure in this sense is indirectly dated to around 1898, by U.S. soldiers in the Spanish–American War,^[5][a] after the phrase had been introduced to America in the mid-19th century in the therapeutic sense, which was in widespread use.^[8] Indeed, while the sense of the phrase water cure as a method of torture was by 1900–1902 established in the U.S. Army,^[9][10] with a conscious sense of irony,^[11] this sense was not in widespread use. Webster's 1913 dictionary cited only the therapeutic sense.^[12]

Torture that makes use of water still exists under the name of waterboarding. In this variation, emphasis is placed on inducing the sensation of drowning rather than forcing the individual to consume, and subsequently regurgitate, large quantities of water.

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