Throughout history mankind has devised all kinds of fiendish torture devices. Many European towns even have "torture museums" where these wares are put on display.

One of the most gruesome-sounding devices is called the pear of anguish. As its name suggests, it's a pear-shaped unit that can be expanded once inserted into any of several body cavities (you can use your imagination here).

The pear of anguish seems to have been used either for punishment in itself, or to extract confessions. The Web site where I found this information has descriptions and illustrations of all kinds of torture tools, from medieval to modern day, including the garotte, the rack, thumb screws, and more.

And Wikipedia has an article on that old standby of classic literature, the torture chamber, which has made appearances in places ranging from Orwell's "1984" to "The Phantom of the Opera."

As we know from books and movies about bygone times involving monsters and demons and torture, the bad old days were really bad.