- Icepick
An icepick is a tool used to break-up, pick, or chip at
ice . It resembles ascratch awl , but is designed for picking at ice rather than wood. Before the invention of modernrefrigerators , ice picks were a ubiquitous household tool used for separating and shaping the blocks of ice used inice box es.Other uses
Like most other tools, icepicks have been used for more than their intended use. For example,
mafia hitman Abe "Kid Twist" Reles used an icepick as his weapon of choice. FellowMurder, Inc. hitman Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss also employed an icepick as a tool of his trade.Alternately,
psychiatrist Walter Freeman used icepicks in what have been termed "icepick lobotomies," also known as atransorbital lobotomy , effectively hammering an icepick into the patient's brain with a rubbermallet via the eye'stear duct . He later developed theorbitoclast to replace the icepick.Although the murder weapon in the assassination of
Leon Trotsky was anice axe , it is often described as an ice pick [See Robert Conquest, "The Great Terror: A Reassessment", Oxford University Press, 1991, ISBN 0195071328, p.418 for a detailed account] .References
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