Cat Piano

German psychiatrist Johann Chrstian Reil gave this world many things. For instance, he coined the phrase "psychiatry." He also gave us the cat piano.

This is every bit as terrifying as it sounds.

You see, Reil practiced a rather unorthodox method of psychiatry. He focused on scaring, harming, or just generally weirding out his patients in hopes that the traumatizing experience would bring them into a state of consciously where they would think more clearly and rationally. Which brings us to the cat piano.

Pictured: science.

Reil called it the Katzenklavier, and it is a literal cat piano. The unlucky cats involved in the experiment's tails were fasted under the hammers of the piano keys; so when one hit a key a corresponding cat would let out a dolorous melody.

Oddly enough, patients treated with the cat piano saw no significant progress in their mental illnesses.   They were also never able to look a cat in the eye again.