Brief account on the head injury of a noble youngster in the sixteenth century (Prince Don Carlos, heir to Philip II of Spain, 1545-1568).

Abstract

Some traumatic events, among them head injuries, are occasionally reported in the medical literature to illustrate relevant affairs that sometimes modify the course of the history [7, 8, 14]. Some of these incidents involve persons of royal lineage, as happened with King Henry II of France who suffered a penetrating orbital injury complicated by a brain contusion and an intracranial empyema that caused the King’s death [7, 14]. In addition to the historical interest that these traumatisms arise, they undoubtedly provide an occasion to review the level of the medical practice in a determined epoch. For this purpose, we retrospectively surveyed the events regarding the unfortunate life of Prince Don Carlos, first-born son and heir to King Philip II of Spain, whose infancy and adolescence were plagued with a multitude of medical troubles including inherited traits, recurrent bouts of malaria, and finally, the deadly complications of a seemingly trivial head injury [4, 8, 11, 12]. The descriptions regarding Don Carlos’ skull trauma have been documented from the official medical reports of doctors Olivares and Daza Chacon and from the brief English account of the accident written by Thomas Chaloner, ambassador of her majesty the Queen Elizabeth of England [4, 8, 11]. Don Carlos’ case report