Medical Malpractice

What torture techniques were used in insane asylums?

I'm writing a short story for my final in English class. Its a old abandoned mental hospital thing, and I want 3 of the characters to die from some kind of torture perfferably done by the evil doctor or nurses. What are some gruesome tortures you know of? I dont care for the whole drilling a hole in the skull and scrambling it up, thats not scary enough. I want gore and brutallity. Thank You!

Public Comments

1. The water drip technique was where the person was fixed in place so not to move the head then a very slow (one drip every 5 seconds) would drip right into the middle of the forehead. After a few days it would feel like a brick hammer hitting the head at full force. Good job it's fiction..
2. Don't forget electro shock therapy. What you are referring to above is called a labotomy. Typically a hole was not drilled into the skull. Actually a device much like an ice pick (and in some reported cases an actual ice pick) was inserted into the brain via the eyeball, right at the corner of the eye next to the nose. Hammered in, jiggled around and removed. The person in some cases was completely conscious during the process. Instruments were not necessarily sanitized and often times there were many people viewing this. One person was killed when the doctor left the pick in there, and moved away to take a picture. The pick fell over. Seems pretty brutal and gorey to me.
3. Shock therapy. They would strap a person to a bed and send volts of electricity through they're sometimes killing the patient or because of the spasms their body had they could break their backs and numerous other things. Look it up on google there is lots on information.