The escape entailed Harry Houdini being bound and suspended upside-down in a locked glass and steel cabinet full to overflowing with water, from which he escaped, together with the Fu Manchu stories of Sax Rohmer that were popular in the 1930s (in which Fu Manchu subjected his victims to various ingenious tortures, such as the wired jacket). It may have been popularised by the predicament escape Chinese Water Torture Cell (a feat of escapology introduced in Berlin at Circus Busch on September 13, 1910).
"Chinese water torture" is mentioned in the 1892 short story "The Compromiser" suggesting some public familiarity with the term by that date. This form of torture was first described by Hippolytus De Marsiliis in Italy in the 15th or 16th century. The pattern of the drops is often irregular, and the cold sensation jarring, which causes anxiety as a person tries to anticipate the next drip. The process causes fear and mental deterioration in the subject. A reproduction of a Chinese water torture apparatus at Berlin-Hohenschönhausen MemorialĬhinese water torture or a "dripping machine" is a mentally painful process in which cold water is slowly dripped onto the scalp, forehead or face for a prolonged period of time.
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