Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Birching is corporal
punishment with a birch rod, typically given on the delinquent's
buttocks or back. It was the most common school, home and
judicial punishment in Europe up to the 19th century when caning
gained increasing popularity. A birch rod is a bundle of
leafless birch twigs bound together, much like a bunch of
flowers, to form an implement for whipping. Today birching is no
longer used for judicial punishment, and has also almost
completely died out as a corporal punishment for children. In
Britain birching as a judicial punishment for young offenders
was abolished in 1947, but the Isle of Man (a small island
between Britain and Ireland with its own legal system) caused a
good deal of controversy by continuing to birch young offenders
into the 1970s. It remains as a nostalgic sadomasochistic
practice, mainly in Northern and Eastern Europe. In Finland and
Russia there is also a tradition to strike one's body with
soaked birch twigs in the sauna to increase blood ci