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Disembowelment,disemboweling,evisceration,eviscerating orgutting is the removal oforgans from thegastrointestinal tract (bowels or viscera), usually through an incision made across theabdominal area. Disembowelment is a standard routine operation duringanimal slaughter.[1] In ancient Rome, disembowelment of animals was practiced for divination, and was known asharuspicy. Disembowelment of humans may result from an accident, but has also been used as a method oftorture orexecution. In such practices, disembowelment may be accompanied by various forms of torture or the removal of other vital organs.
The removal of internal organs is a typical operation in meat processing also known asdressing.[2] Land animals and birds are typically killed and bled before the dressing. The process of dressing includes the removal of heart, liver and lungs (pluck) as well as disembowelment by an abdominal cut.[3] Disembowelment is typically accompanied bybung dropping orbunging.[4] Bung dropping is the circumcision of therectum from the carcass and is the first step of the gutting.[4] Puncturing of bowels are avoided during the evisceration. Otherwise, bacteria from the intestinal contents might spread over the carcass.[5] In case of birds, the abdominal cut extends up to thecloaca separating it from the rest of the skin.[6]
Abung dropper is a device used inslaughterhouses for fast bung dropping in a dressing line.[7] The probe of a bung dropper is inserted into the rectum to loosen it from the carcass by circumcising with a sharp rotating cylinder.[8]Belly opener is a device for performing the abdominal cut.[9]
Some types ofanimal mummification include evisceration.[10] The process ofembalming sometimes includes removing the internal organs.Mummification, especially as practiced by theancient Egyptians, entailed the removal of internal organs prior to the preservation of the remainder of the body. The removed organs were embalmed, stored incanopic jars and then placed in the tomb with the body.
James Cook, on his second voyage, noted an embalming custom on some of the Pacific islands his crew visited, a custom utilizing transanal evisceration:[11]
We found the body not only entire in every part; but, what surprised us much more, was, that putrefaction had scarcely begun (...); though the climate is one of the hottest, and Tee had been dead above five months.(...) Such were Mr.Anderson's remarks to me, who also told me, on his enquiring into the method of effecting this preservation of their dead bodies, he had been informed, that, soon after their death, they are disemboweled, by drawing their intestines, and other viscera, out at the anus; and the whole cavity is then filled or stuffed with cloth; introduced through the same part(...)
When a portion of the intestinal tract is forcefully pulled from or expelled from the body through theanus, it is referred to astransanal evisceration. Following the first report of transanal evisceration by Brodie in 1827, more than 70 cases have been reported to date, the majority occurring spontaneously in elderly individuals. Straining, chronic constipation, and rectal ulcerations predispose to spontaneous perforation in elderly individuals.[12]
Cases of transanal evisceration of children whilst sitting over uncoveredswimming pool drains have been reported; notable cases include Valerie Lakey (1993) andAbigail Taylor (2007). In Taylor's case, the suction dislodged and damaged herliver andpancreas; several meters of hersmall intestine were forcefully pulled through her anus. In both these cases, the victims were left withshort bowel syndrome and required feeding by totalparenteral nutrition. After multiple operations, Taylor later died from transplant-related cancer.[13][14]
A person, usually a child, can suffer a similar injury if a heavy weight is applied directly over the abdomen. Large intestine (rectosigmoid) rupture with transanal evisceration has been reported from blunt abdominal trauma and suction injuries. A direct blow or impingement of intestine between the vertebrae and anterior abdominal wall results in sudden increase in the intra-abdominal or intraluminal pressure of the intestine and rupture.[12] The downward pressure forces a portion of the intestine to burst from the anus.
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If a living person is disemboweled, it is invariably fatal without major medical intervention. Historically, disembowelment has been used as a severe form ofcapital punishment.[15]
Various accounts have asserted that during theVietnam War, members of theViet Cong sometimes made calculated use of disembowelment as a means ofpsychological warfare, to coerce and intimidate ruralpeasants.[16][17] Peer De Silva, former head of theSaigon department of theCentral Intelligence Agency (CIA), wrote that from as early as 1963, Viet Cong units were using disembowelment and other methods of mutilation as psychological warfare.[18] The extent, however, to which this punishment was perpetrated may be impossible to gauge and while detailed accounts survive regarding how civilians were disemboweled by Viet Cong,[citation needed] the use of this torture appears to have been quite arbitrary and there is no record that such actions were sanctioned by theNorth Vietnamese government inHanoi. Disembowelment and other methods of intimidation and torture were intended to frighten civilian peasants at a local level into cooperating with the Viet Cong or discourage them from cooperating with theSouth Vietnamese Army or its allies.[18][citation needed]
In early 1941, during theBucharest pogrom in which 125Jewish civilians were killed, multiple cases of torture including disembowelment were recorded.[19]
On 10 July 1584,Balthasar Gérard shot and killedWilliam of Orange, who had advocated forDutch independence from theKing of Spain.[20] The assassin was interrogated and condemned to death almost immediately.[21] On 14 July, after suffering various tortures during each of the five days since the assassination, Gérard was disemboweled anddismembered while still alive, after which his heart was torn out and then he was beheaded by his Dutch executioners.[20][22]
Christian tradition states thatErasmus of Formiae, also known as Saint Elmo, was finally executed by disembowelment in about A.D. 303, after he had suffered extreme forms of torture during the persecutions of EmperorDiocletian andMaximian.[citation needed]
InEngland, the punishment of being "hanged, drawn and quartered" was typically used for men convicted ofhigh treason. This referred to the practice of dragging a man by a hurdle (similar to a fence panel) through the streets, removing him from the hurdle and (1) hanging him from the neck (but removing him beforedeath), (2) drawing (i.e. disembowelling) him slowly on a wooden block by slitting open his abdomen, removing hisentrails and his other organs (which were frequently thrown on a fire), and thendecapitating him and (3) quartering, i.e. dividing the body into four pieces. The man's head and quarters would often beparboiled and displayed as awarning to others. As part of the disembowelment, the man was also typicallyemasculated and his genitals and entrails would be burned.[citation needed]
William Harrington, Hugh le Despenser the Younger and William Parry are examples of men who were hanged, drawn and quartered – tortured on the rack,hanged until not quite dead, subjected to emasculation, disembowelment and then chopped into quarters.[23]
From the 15th century, ordinances are retained that threaten with a terrible punishment those who stripped off the bark of a standing tree in the common woods. A typical wording is found in the 1401 ordinance fromOberursel:[24]
"...and whoever is caught stripping off a standing tree, mercy would have been more beneficial to him than the law is; for when law is to be fulfilled, then one is to cut up his stomach at the navel, and pull out a length of the gut. The gut is to be nailed to the tree, and one is keep going around that tree with the person, so long as he still has any part of the gut left in his body."
Jacob Grimm observes that no case of the punishment being carried out has been found in records from that period (15th century), but 300 to 500 years earlier, theWestern Slavic tribes like theWends are said to have revenged themselves upon Christians by binding the guts to an erect pole and driving them around until the person was fully eviscerated.[25] In the 13th century, members of the now extinct Baltic ethnic group ofOld Prussians in one of the battles against theTeutonic Knights, are said to have captured one such knight in 1248 and made him undergo this punishment.[26]
Nezahualcoyotl, a 15th-centuryAcolhuan ruler ofTexcoco, a member of theAztec Triple Alliance (nowMexico), promulgated a law code that was partially preserved. Those who had engaged in the passive role of homosexual anal intercourse had their intestines pulled out, then their bodies were filled with ash, and finally, were burnt. The active or penetrating partner was simplysuffocated in a heap of ash.[27][better source needed]
InJapan, disembowelment played a central part as a method of execution or the ritualizedsuicide of asamurai. In killing themselves by this method, they were deemed to be free from the dishonor resulting from their crimes. The most common form of disembowelment was referred to in Japanese asseppuku (or, colloquially,hara-kiri), literally "stomach cutting," involving two cuts across the abdomen, sometimes followed by pulling out one's ownviscera.[citation needed]
The act ofdecapitation by a second (kaishaku-nin) was added to this ritual suicide in later times in order to shorten the suffering of the samurai or leader, an attempt at rendering the ritual more humane. Even later the knife was just a simple formality and the swordsman would decapitate before the subject could reach for it. The commission of a crime or dishonorable act was only one of many reasons for the performance of seppuku; others included the atonement of cowardice, as a means of apology, or following the loss of a battle or the surrender of acastle.[citation needed]
The Japanese tradition ofseppuku is a well known example of highly ritualized suicide, within a wider cultural world of norms and symbolism. However, reported examples of suicides exist, in which a person performed disembowelment on themself, without any ambient culture of approved (or expected) suicide.[citation needed]
The Spartan kingCleomenes I is reported, in a fit of madness, to have slit his stomach open, and ripped his ownbowels out.[28]
Roman statesmanCato the Younger committed suicide inUtica, afterhis side lost toCaesar, by plunging a knife in his own gut, in the dead of night. According toPlutarch, Cato's son heard the commotion from a nearby room, and called a doctor who stitched the wound closed; after his son and the doctor left, Cato tore the stitching open with his hand and died. On account of his tragic, highly symbolic suicide, Cato is often termedUticensis ("of Utica"), in order to differentiate him from his homonymous ancestor,Cato "the Elder" or "the Censor".[citation needed]
In 1593, a suicide occurred inWimpfen. A young, pregnant woman, who had become a widow a few weeks before, was lying in her bed. She took a large knife, opened her belly in a cross, and threw out the fetus, her own intestines, and dug out her spleen and flung it out as well. She lived for 10 hours after the act, and when the priests sought to bring her a final consolation and blessing, she said it would all be in vain, because she was a daughter of the devil, and was beyond any sort of redemption. Then, she died, was put in a sack, and was thrown in the river. She was affluent, so it was clear that poverty had not driven her to this act.[29]
In 1617, a merchant in the municipality Grossglockau[30] slit his abdomen so that the intestines fell out; he then pulled out his stomach and threw it on his bed. The chronicler notes he lived long enough to regret his action.[31]
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