Disembowelment

Disembowelment is evisceration, or the removing of vital organss, usually from the abdomen. The results are invariably fatal. It has historically been used as a form of capital punishment.

In England, the punishment of being "hanged, drawn, and quartered" referred to the practice of hanging a man from the neck (but not until dead), disemboweling him, and dividing the body into pieces. Women, for modesty's sake, were instead burned alive. (In France, the punishment of being "drawn" refers to being conveyed to the place of execution.)

During the Spanish Inquisition, the method of disembowelment was to cut a small hole in the victim's gut. The intestines are then drawn out slowly and carefully. The executioners kept the victim alive as much as possible during the process.

In Japan, disembowelment also formed part of the method of execution of samurai. 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 as seppuku (where the term "hara-kiri" is regarded as insulting), involving two cuts across the abdomen, sometimes followed by beheading. In the English language, hara-kiri and seppuku are synonyms, and hara-kiri is by far the more common usage.