It turns out that there are lots of different water tortures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_torture) but the "

It turns out that there are lots of different water tortures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_torture) but the "Chinese" one was first documented in Italy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_water_torture However, I don't recommend reading those articles beyond the first paragraph and list of contents!