Painful sexual intercourse caused by a disproportionately long penis: an historical note on a remarkable treatment devised by Guilhelmius Fabricius Hildanus (1560-1634).

Between 1598 and 1641, the famous surgeon Guilhelmius Fabricius Hildanus (1560-1634) published 600 medical and surgical observations in his Observationum et curationum chirurgicarum centuriae I-VI. One of the case reports bears the title 'Pain and infertility caused by a too large penis.' The woman described in this case report most likely suffered from positional deep dyspareunia. Hildanus invented in 1593 a remarkable made-to-measure device. This device was a very well-considered and faultless curative for the woman's dyspareunia. It seemed that the dyspareunia had a simple cause: the disproportional large penis of the woman's husband. Four hundred years later, Hildanus' forgotten penis shortening device deserves a resurrection in today's medical practice. This remarkable and almost forgotten case report is described and discussed.