Church doctrine protected human life so it was problematic if a victim were to die, especially before they confessed. In difficult cases, when a victim would not readily confess or was too weak to continue in an uninterrupted torture session, breaks were allowed between torture sessions because Inquisition regulations only allowed one torture session per victim. That way, a torture session could resume after a break to allow time for the victim to recover or reconsider their opposition to confessing, and it was considered to have been the continuation of the previous torture session and not a new one.