The Prison Treadmill As a Torture Device

I just got done reading a rather interesting, if not disturbing article on how treadmills were used in English prisons since 1779 as forced hard labor torture devices.

Here's a quote from the article by John H. Lienhard on his Engines of Ingenuity website, "Treadmills have been around since antiquity. They let us use our lower body muscles to power pumps and mills. Treadmills came into English jails following a 1779 prison reform act. That act said that prisoners should be given labor of the hardest and most servile kind in which drudgery is chiefly required and where the work is little liable to be spoiled by ignorance, neglect, or obstinac".

Maybe that explains why so many people absolutely dread getting on a treadmill each day, it's as though their ancestors genes have unknowingly conditioned them to despise this modern "evil" machine.

What do you think?