Since the days when Roman law prevailed throughout Europe, torture has been regarded as subtending three "classes" or "degrees" of suffering. "First-degree" torture typically took the forms of whipping and beating but did not mutilate the body. The most prevalent modern example is bastinado, a technique of beating or whipping the soles of the bare feet. "Second-degree" torture consisted almost entirely of crushing devices and procedures, including screw presses or "bone vises" that crushed thumbs, toes, knees, feet, even teeth and skulls in a wide variety of ways. A wide array of "boots"—-machines designed to slowly crush feet—-are representative. Finally, "third-degree" tortures savagely mutilated the body in numerous dreadful ways, incorporating spikes, blades, boiling oil, and controlled fire. The serrated iron tongue shredder; the red-hot copper basin for destroying eyesight (abacination, "q.v."); and the stocks that forcibly held the prisoner's naked feet, glistening with lard, directly over red-hot coals (foot roasting, "q.v.") until the skin and foot muscles were burnt black and the bones fell to ashes are examples of torture in the third degree.