From: Dave Wallace <wmdavid.wallace@gmail.com>
Date: Sat Nov 28 2009 - 16:23:13 EST

Oscar,

This is a note I sent earlier in answer to a similar question. 


Bethany Sollereder wrote:

As for pain and its goodness, one should remember that leprosy is simply the killing of pain nerves.  Leprosy is commonly understood as a flesh-eating disease, but this is a mistake.  It simply deadens pain sensations, and the people rip their own bodies to pieces by not being able to heed the warning signs pain gives.  It makes one wonder about the wisdom of our cultural love for pain killers...

My father ran the clean and leper schools at a leprosarium in Ethiopia when I was doing grade 9 by correspondence.  I well remember complaints from the medical staff that rodents (mice and rats) ate toes at night while the patients slept.  Fire burns were also not uncommon as they did not feel the pain.
============

This book talks about what happens when we don't feel pain:

Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants

by Dr. Paul Brand, Philip Yancey, C Everett Koop, M.D., SC.D. (Foreword by)

About this title: Dr Brand began his career in India, where he became a pioneer in the treatment of leprosy. His discovery that leprosy patients could not feel pain was a turning point not only in the understanding of the disease, but in his own approach to pain. He learned that we should listen to pain as our body's most effective way of communicating. This book ...

You can read it online or at least much of it at:

http://books.google.ca/books?id=8xI5jhjANgMC&pg=PR10&dq=yancey+brand+book&ei=u5IRS7CaGJDczQTC1LSADQ#v=onepage&q=yancey%20brand%20book&f=false

It is not pleasant reading but then neither is seeing or smelling leprosy.

You might also try C S Lewis The Problem of Pain.  Probably it is also in Google books. 

There are lots of aspect to the your question.

Dave W
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