Note 139 — Chapter XVIII
Eleanor Marx Aveling translation
The correspondent of the Times wrote in the number of 9th May: "The superior and her nuns explained that these were orthopædic instruments—a superficial falsehood. The mattress and straps struck me as being easily accounted for; I have seen such things used in French midwifery and in cases of violent delirium; but the rack and its adjuncts are justly objects of grave suspicion, for they imply a use of brutal force which no disease at present known would justify."