摘要
Background:This essay examines how nineteenth-century Anglo-American physicians and scientists constructed racial hierarchies through theories of pain insensitivity,advancing the notion of“organic insensibility”to pathologize the bodies-particularly the crania,epidermis,and reproductive organs-of American Indians,African Americans,and East Asians.Methods:Drawing on medical texts,ethnographic accounts,and the writings of proslavery and colonial ideologues,the essay explores how perceptions of diminished pain sensitivity were used to justify settler colonialism,slavery,and imperialism from the period of Indian Removal to the expansion of the Cotton Kingdom and the Opium Wars.Results:Practices such as cranial deformation,parturient pain,surgical endurance,skin experiments,and foot binding,were racialized to support claims of biological inferiority and moral deficiency.Conclusion:Integrating insights from the history and philosophy of science and medicine,and phenomenology,the essay demonstrates how pain was not only a medical concern but a political feeling-central to the denial of full humanity to racialized populations.
