Boot (torture)
The term boot refers to a family of instruments of torture and interrogation variously designed to cause crushing injuries to the foot and/or leg. The boot has taken many forms in various places and times. Common varieties include the Spanish boot (sometimes referred to as "scarpines") and the Malay boot. One type was made of four pieces of narrow wooden board nailed together. The boards were measured to fit the victim's leg. Once the leg was enclosed, wedges would be hammered between the boards, creating pressure. The pressure would be increased until the victim confessed or lost  consciousness. Newer variants have included iron vises—sometimes armed with spikes—that squeezed feet and metal frames employed red-hot. John Spreul is reported to have been tortured with two different boots. In general, the boot was an effective and mechanically-clever torture device and was widely employed throughout Europe to extract information. Spanish boot. The Spanish boot was an iron casing for the leg and foot. Wood or iron wedges were hammered in between the casing and the victim's flesh. A similar device, commonly referred to as a shin crusher, squeezed the calf between two curved iron plates , studded with spikes, teeth, and knobs, to fracture the tibia and fibula. Primitive forerunners of the archetype can be found dating back as far as a thousand years. The first Scottish effort, also referred to as a buskin, made use of a vaguely boot-shaped rawhide garment that was soaked with water, drawn over the foot and lower leg, and bound in place with cords. The contraption was slowly heated over a gentle fire, drastically contracting the rawhide and squeezing the foot until the bones were dislocated, though there would not have been sufficient pressure to actually crush the bones  of the foot. A more progressive variant, found in both the British Isles and France, consisted of a trio of upright wooden boards that splinted around and between the feet, fundamentally identical to the Chinese foot torture known as "Jiagun", and were tied in place by cords. Wedges were hammered between the boards and the feet to dislocate and crush the bones. Even ancient India saw the use of the "kittee", a simplistic wooden machine, resembling a lemon press, within which the bare foot was slowly squeezed. A prototype hailing from Autun, France, consisted of high boots of spongy, porous  leather that were drawn over the feet and legs. Boiling water was poured over the boots, eventually soaking through the leather and eating the flesh away from the entrapped limbs. Lastly, oversized boots of iron or copper (often soldered in place on the floor) received the prisoner's bare feet as he lay helplessly bound and gagged in a chair. The boots were slowly filled with boiling water or oil, or even molten lead, to consume the feet and legs. One variant—applied in Ireland to the martyr Dermot O'Hurley—consisted of lightweight metal boots that were filled with cool  water and heated with the feet inside over a fire until the water boiled aggressively. Malay boot. The Malay boot figures prominently in the movie "China Seas", in which the protagonist, portrayed by Clark Gable, is subjected to this cruel torture. The instrument splints the foot and ankle between a pair of vertical boards made of strong wood or metal. The members are vaguely boot shaped and completely enclose the prisoner's instep and toes. A crank is turned to close the uprights around the foot, squeezing the entrapped foot to first grind the metatarsal heads together and eventually inflict  sufficient pressure to shatter bones. Curiously, in the movie, Clark Gable's character is tortured while wearing a sock: in actuality, the torture was applied to the naked foot. Foot press. A similar implement, the "foot press", consisted of a pair of horizontal iron plates slowly tightened around the bare foot by means of a crank mechanism, squeezing the foot with sufficient force to pulverize the bones. Although it was quite standard to line the lower plate with ribs to prevent the foot from popping out of the grip of the instrument as it became sweatier, a crueler variant of  this device—typically encountered in Nuremberg, Germany—lined the upper plate with hundreds of sharp spikes. A version from Venice, sometimes called the "foot screw" or "toe breaker", connected the crank mechanism to a drill that slowly mutilated the foot by boring a hole through the center of the instep as the press was tightened. The "toe breaker" from Nuremberg was a wider instrument that accommodated both feet, side by side, simultaneously applying inexorable crushing pressure to all ten toes. Were the prisoner particularly stubborn or strong-willed, the press could be tightened until the plates met, so grinding the  foot bones to powder. Medieval boots were built according to a wide array of architectures. One commonly encountered boot consisted fundamentally of a pair of upright parallel boards that splinted the toes. Turning the screw squeezed the toes between the boards, inflicting lateral pressure on the metatarsal heads and causing agony. Curling the toes over the edge of the boot—typically on pain of being blinded with a dagger—gave the device a stronger grip on the metatarsal heads, thereby enabling the application of maximum pressure and pain. This is the type of boot commonly associated with the torture of  Esmeralda in Victor Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre-Dame". Hollywood went out of its way to present exotic, even bizarre, boots that were short on historical accuracy, one of which was little more than dissociated spiked plates lying here and there. The cruelty of the torture could be increased by spacing the toes apart with stiff wooden pegs. Various extensions of the instrument were designed to crush the ankle, calf, or knee in addition to its primary target, the instep. The toes often protruded from the front of the boot, facilitating the infliction of ancillary tortures, such as forcibly tearing  the nails from the toes with red-hot pincers or exploring the delicate webbing between the toes with a red-hot iron probe. This type of boot, also called the "brodequin", seems to have been the commonest torture device in France. An alternative "boot" of streamlined design, into which the bare foot was locked with an iron pin, squeezed the toes between iron bars until their bones were fractured. A hinged variant cheaply manufactured from cast iron was used to torture slaves in colonial America. Toe bones were also routinely crushed with mallets, sometimes by cruelly hammering sharp wooden wedges  into the tips. In "The Big Book of Pain", Donnelly and Diehl present an ingenious and diabolical iron torture boot. The configurable device completely encloses the naked foot. The roomy toe box is filled with iron spikes, teeth, and burs. A vertical plate behind the prisoner's heel fits into a grooved track and can be forced forward by turning a wheel. The steadily increasing pressure first forces the toes against the spikes, mangling their flesh and crushing their bones. Under continued inexorable pressure, the bones of the instep eventually give way until the arch of the foot is shattered . The heel bone is sufficiently powerful to withstand the torture, although the heel is not generously provided with afferent pain nociceptors. Another variation occasionally seen (Scott, 1991) is a compartment beneath the sole of the prisoner's foot that can be filled with red-hot coals.