[Henry IV de Castilla( 1454-1474). An exceptional urologic patient. Morphological and personality portrait of Henry IV " The impotent" in contemporary chronicles and manuscripts (I)].

OBJECTIVE

To make an update on Gregorio Marañon's work "Biological essay about Henry IV and his time" (Madrid 1930), reviewing the clinical diagnosis made by the famous spanish doctor-historian more than 70 years ago on the last Monarch of the Castilian Trastamara, because we consider that diseases suffered by Henry IV were urologic mainly.

METHODS

We reviewed 10 chronicles, 5 contemporary manuscripts, and 25 works about the figure of Henry IV published up to year 2000. For comparisons between works we evaluated not only the chronicles and works used by Marañon, but also the more recent ones of medical character, which have resulted in a significant increase in the amount of data about the figure of the Monarch. Additionally, following our current knowledge we tried to adapt the clinical diagnosis from Marañon--eunucoid dysplasia with acromegalic reaction--to current nomenclature in order to define the kind of endocrinopathy the Monarch suffered.

RESULTS

Following a review of contemporary chronicles and recent bibliography about Henry IV, the Monarch was a singular urologic patient. He suffered chronic renal lithiasis, impotence, a presumptive penile anomaly, and almost surely infertility, although all his uro-andrological diseases were part of the endocrinopathy the Monarch suffered, probably a hypophyseal tumor. Included in the work there are descriptions of his physiognomy and psychopathological characters of his personality from the chronicles, commenting on all clinical symptoms the Monarch suffered according to his biographers and present day doctors and historians.