Niels Ryberg Finsen | Biography

Niels Ryberg Finsen, the father of phototherapy, received the Nobel Prize in 1903 for physiology or medicine after proving his radical theory that light rays could cure disease and save lives. Called "The Light Hunter" by an early biographer, Finsen was born in Thorshavn in the Faeroe Islands in the North Sea. His father, Hannes Steingrim Finsen--whose ancestry dates back to Icelandic Vikings of the tenth century--was a govenor in the islands; his mother--Johanne Fröman--was also born in Iceland.

Finsen attended school in the Faeroe Islands before being sent to prep school in Denmark from which he was expelled for "...small ability and total lack of energy." In 1876, his father sent him to Reykjavík school in Iceland where he was exposed to "...an absolutely unique system of teaching him to believe nothing but what he found out for himself." In 1891, he received his medical degree from the University of Copenhagen where he became an anatomy instructor. He married Ingeborg Balslev in 1892 (with whom he had four children) and left the university in 1893 to pursue his fascination with sunlight.

Finsen's first success was with smallpox. He observed that, although smallpox blisters covered the entire body, they became infected and caused scars only where the skin was exposed to sunlight--primarily on the hands and face. Through previous experiments, he hypothesized that the blue, violet, and ultraviolet light rays caused this irritation, and proposed keeping patients in rooms with red glass and red curtains to allow only infrared light in. While local doctors laughed at his crazy theory, two doctors in Bergen, Norway--Lindholm and Svendsen--put it into practice. Every patient they treated in "red rooms" recovered without a scar. Shortly thereafter, scientific confirmation came from Gothenburg, Sweden, that people with the deadly black smallpox recovered with the same treatment.

Finsen gained international recognition, yet something more bothered him. Contrary to physiological evidence which said sunlight was harmful, he believed it was somehow good. Astute observations and instinct drove him to pursue its therapeutic properties. By 1883, he was suffering from Pick's disease, a progressive and fatal illness. One day, while shivering through a period of sudden chill which often engulfed his ailing body, he watched a cat bathing in the sun on a roof outside his window. Repeatedly, as the shade moved over its body, the cat edged back into the sunlight. He pondered that cats were perfectly healthy creatures, seldom needing a doctor! On another occasion, he noticed a skating bug floating downstream. Each time the current drew it into the shadow of the bridge, it darted back into the sunlight. Because nature came alive when the sun shone--bringing birds into song, flowers into bloom, and bees buzzing about busily--he suspected sunlight played a larger role than just the warmth it provided. Even his own body seemed more vital and energetic after spending time in the sun.

Finsen began crude experiments--a famous one on his wife's ear lobe and another on the tail of a tadpole--which led to his next great discovery and the Nobel Prize. Contrary to his findings that ultraviolet rays aggravated smallpox blisters, he believed they had beneficial properties. He ultimately proved that high concentrations of these rays killed microbes. Laughed at again by the scientific and medical communities, he turned to the chief engineer of the local power plant, Winfred Hanson. Together they designed an electric arc lamp, gathering the ultraviolet rays through a series of lenses and focusing them on the huge sore on the face of a Danish engineer and friend of Hanson's by the name of Morgensen. For eight years, Morgensen had suffered with lupus vulgaris, a form of tuberculosis which caused oozing, disfiguring, and incurable open sores. No medical treatment had helped; however, after sitting under Finsen's clumsy lamp two hours a day for a month, the sore began to change. From November 1895 until March, 1896 he received treatment, which totally eradicated the disfiguring lesion. Soon thereafter, two manufacturers by the name of Jörgensen and Hagemann founded the Finsen Institute in Copenhagen. The scientific community could no longer deny Finsen's success, and four university professors agreed to serve on the institute's board.

Confined to a wheel chair during most of his final experiments, and too ill to attend the Nobel ceremony, Finsen's tenacious research earned him Knighthood to the Order of Danneborg, the Silver Cross, the Danish gold medal for merit, the Cameron Prize from the University of Edinburgh, and other honorary awards. Finsen died in his wife's arms at the age of forty-four.