pithing

Students operate on rats and then kill them .. and destroy frogs 'brains by sticking a pin through the animals' skulls (a process called "pithing").

whoar.co.nz 2009

(23 October 1999, p 6) in which John Bonner describes the discovery of brain tissue in the vascular system of 1 in 16 bolt-stunned cattle that were then subjected to "pithing": having their brains scrambled by a metal pole in order to prevent the animal reflexively kicking out.

New Scientist - Online News 2009

The whole is wrapped in a close-curried, stub-nosed Alfa stile that puts a pithing cane in the notion that hatchbacks are boring.

Alfa Romeo Readies a Stirring Stateside Return Dan Neil 2011

I wonder how many of us were weeded out of certain branches of science because we were affected by the preliminary, I daresay ritualistic, routines: pithing frogs, slamming rats heads on counter-tops, injecting this or that to see exactly what we knew was going to happen anyway.

"Now, I am become death...." doyle 2009

But he's certainly capable of pithing essentialist idiocies.

A Mirror For Ms. Bachman 2008

If there ever were two philosophical foes, it is Lewis and Pullman; and yet I deem that both are being served poorly by pithing their words and leaving the husks.

God is Cut From His Dark Materials 2004

It's true that generally this is an improvement, but pithing on somebody's copy is a heuristic rather than a goal in its own right.

languagehat.com: LOVE—AND THE PHILOSOPHER. 2005

Mrs. Horatio slapped a pithing needle down on his desk.

Bloodstream Tess Gerritsen 1998

With her other hand, she reached for the pithing needle.

Bloodstream Tess Gerritsen 1998

Again she grabbed his wrist, this time forcing him to drop the pithing needle.

Bloodstream Tess Gerritsen 1998