FINSEN, Niels Ryberg, Danish physician, scientist and discoverer of the method of cur ing lupus or tuberculosis of the skin, and other skin diseases, with light rays: b. Iceland in 1860; d. Copenhagen, Denmark, 24 Sept. 1904. Professor Finsen's great discovery, that sun light and electric light rays contain properties that can be used to cure skin diseases and blem ishes, was the outgrowth of his experiments be gun as a student in the Copenhagen University.
In 1890 Finsen was graduated from the Copenhagen University, receiving his doctor's degree. Three years later he published in a medical journal an article on 'The Influence of Light on the Skin,' which aroused general attention because of his assertion that cases of smallpox could be cured by putting red curtains at the windows of the sick-room. Smallpox became epidemic in 1894 in Copen hagen and the new method was put to the test. The red-room treatment became popular with both the medical profession and the public, for by it not only was the disease cured, but the red rays prevented suppuration and left the patient unmarked by the dreaded scars.
The red-light treatment was but one applica tion of Finsen's theory that light rays contained healing, and at the best it was but a negative result ; it cured only when the disease had run its course. To develop the positive element of the light-ray cure, Finsen began experimenting with artificial light rays. Soon he found it
possible to concentrate rays of the ordinary electric light in such a way as to cure a lupus patient who for eight years had tried every known method. The cure attracted great at tention, and both moral and financial support came to the young investigator and discoverer. In 1896 the municipal hospital of Copenhagen gave room on its ground for several small buildings, in which Finsen's experiments con tinued on an increasing scale. Then the Danish government came to the support of the institu tion and it was enlarged and removed to Rosen vaenget, a pleasant suburb of Copenhagen. Many cures of cases previously deemed hope less were made through the new and enlarged apparatus, the high-power Finsen lamp, which was used under the direction of a staff of phy sicians of national renown, expert electricians and specially trained nurses, headed by Finsen. To Finsen is due also the discovery that certain rays of the sun's spectrum are bacteria-destroy ing, while others are of a healing and curative nature. In December 1903 Finsen received the Nobel medical prize from the Norwegian Par liament. Institutions for the use of the rays are now established in every civilized country.
See FINSEN LIGHT; PHOTOTHERAPY.