Dismemberment
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- "Dismember" redirects here. For other uses, see Dismember (disambiguation). For the indie band see The Dismemberment Plan.
Dismemberment is the act of cutting, tearing, pulling, wrenching or otherwise removing, the limbs of a living thing. It can be a form of capital punishment, an accident, or possibly a murder or suicide. As opposed to surgical amputation of the limbs, dismemberment is often fatal.
Dismemberment was carried out in modern times by tying a person's limbs to a chain or other constraint, whereby attaching the restraint to two separate movable entities (eg. a vehicle) and moving them in the opposite directions. Also referred to as "disruption" or being "drawn and quartered", it could be brought about by chaining four horses to the victim's arms and legs, thus making them pull him apart, as was the case with the execution of Robert-François Damiens and François Ravaillac in 1610. Queen Brunhilda of Austrasia, executed in 613 is generally regarded as having suffered the same death, though she was tied to the tail of a single horse. In 1998, three men from Texas dismembered James Byrd, Jr. by chaining him to their pickup truck and dragging him for miles.
A famous device used for dismemberment is the rack, upon which the victim is chained down by the wrists and ankles, on a large bed-like frame, and a wheel is subsequently turned, winding in the chains and causing an immense stretching. Dismemberment is not known to be used by any modern governments as a form of torture or capital punishment.
