A while back, we were discussing the (in)desirability of eliminating
fear.
Nature has an article on a related subject, "An SCN9A channelopathy
causes congenital inability to experience pain":
The index case for the present study was a ten-year-old child, well
known to the medical service after regularly performing 'street
theatre'. He placed knives through his arms and walked on burning
coals, but experienced no pain. He died before being seen on his
fourteenth birthday, after jumping off a house roof.
It would appear that lack of normal risk-aversion can be somewhat
unhealthy.
Subsequently, we studied three further consanguineous families in
which there were individuals with similar histories of a lack of pain
appreciation.
Judging by the family trees given in their Figure 1, "consanguineous"
is the formal way of saying that one's family tree resembles an italian
cypress.
None knew what pain felt like, although the older individuals realized
what actions should elicit pain (including acting as if in pain after
football tackles). All had injuries to their lips and/or tongue (with
loss of the distal third in two cases), caused by biting themselves in
the first 4 yr of life.
They follow this point with a laundry list of other injuries
(undetected fractures, etc.) which, in their conclusion, leads to the
following observation:
... affected individuals often suffer permanent injury during
childhood because they fail to notice illnesses or injuries, and fail
to learn pain-avoiding (severe risk-avoiding) behaviours -- as in this
study's index case.
-Dave
- [silk] feeling no pain Dave Long
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