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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.
>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.