[A royal eye lesion].

Abstract

The 67-year old danish King Christian IV commanded one of the battle ships called "Trefoldigheden" ("Trinity") in a confrontation with the Swedish navy at Kolberger Heide july 1.st 1644. He himself was injured when a Swedish canon ball hit the dolphin (the handle of the canon) and both exploded. A large number of metal fragments were spread over the deck and 2 noble men standing beside the king were mortally injured. Christian's lesions were in his right face, forehead and eye and he lost his vision on this eye. It has been suggested that this was due to a later infection with shrinking of the eye. The King however claimed that nothing was to observe on the eye ball. The King lived until 1648. No paintings exist from the period 1644-48 that reveals his right eye. The author has found a medal portrait of the king from 1645 made by Johan Blum showing a dilated pupil on the right site and some eksophtalmus leading to the conclusion that a direct lesion of the optic nerve either caused by a metal piece or a retro-bulbar haematoma was responsible for the permanent loss of vision. The dilated pupil was caused by a Marcus Gunn phenomena or paradox pupil reaction which the king could not observe himself when he looked in his mirror.