FINSEN, NIELS RYBERG Danish physician and originator of the Finsen lamp for treatment of skin diseases, was born on Dec. 15, 186o, at Thorshavn, in the Faeroe islands. His parents were Icelandic, and the boy spent his early years at school in Reykjavik. The contrasts in the light and darkness of the north interested him very early, and the discovery that he worked better in a well-lighted room started him on a study of the effect of light on physical organisms. He graduated from the University of Copenhagen in 1890 as a doctor of medicine, and was prosector there for three years. He resigned to conduct experiments on the physiologic effect of light, and in 1893 pub lished a paper on the treatment of smallpox by red light to ex clude the actinic (blue, violet and ultra-violet) rays of ordinary light and thus prevent suppuration of the lesions with subsequent scar formation. Later he found that the actinic rays of sunlight, which were detrimental to smallpox, were responsible for the bactericidal property of sunlight. This knowledge enabled him to develop the effective treatment of lupus vulgaris by ultra-violet rays.
The publication in 1896 of Finsen's best known work "on the employment in medicine of concentrated chemical light rays" brought him immediate fame and a small pension from the Gov ernment, on which he lived while he continued his experiments. In 1895 he published his general theory of the effect of light on living organisms; i.e., that it is the actinic rays found in the blues and violets of the spectrum which possess curative value and stimulating influence, and not, as had been hitherto supposed, the physical action of light and heat. After practical tests for two years, he published The Treatment of Lupus Vulgaris by Concentrated Chemical Rays (1897).
Through the generosity of two wealthy Danes, G. A. Hagemann and Vilh. Jorgensen, and with a Government loan, his Light insti tute was founded in Copenhagen in April 1896. It had a capacity for treating 200 patients daily, and equipment for making and supporting scientific research concerning the action of light upon living organisms, with the purpose of applying the results to the service of practical medicine. In 1910 98% cures had been accom plished in the treatment of 2,000 patients. Finsen was awarded the Nobel prize of ioo,000 crowns in 1903, half of which he gave to the institute, and arranged that the other half should revert to it on the death of his heirs. From the age of 23 Finsen was practically an invalid. For the last few years of his life, he had to direct the work of the institute from his home in Copenhagen.
He died on Sept. 24, 1904.
See Canadian Institute Transactions, vol. viii., pp. 99-135 (Toronto, 1905) ; Cleveland Moffett, "Finsen and the Story of His Achievement," McClure's Magazine (Feb. 1903) ; and Nature, vol. lxx., p. 532.
(A. U. D.)