Finsen’s chemical light to heal
Niels Finsen was born in 1860 in Faroe Islands, a remote Danish territory located in the North Atlantic between Iceland and Norway. He lived on for only 44 years, and had his struggles with a rare congenital disease. Yet, he went on to become a doctor, and treat many a patients of Tuberculosis with “Chemical Light therapy.” This new discovery in late 1890s, also won him 1903 Nobel Prize in Medicine. While his own death in 1904, due to an illness (later identified as Neimann-Pick disease) truncated his career, light therapy for tuberculosis lived on till 1950s. The concept was also a foundation for “phototherapy” and later “radiotherapy” in medical science.
Early observations with light
Finsen struggled with his school education, changed schools due to language issues, and finally took admission in a medical school in Copenhagen in 1882. Prioritization of Icelandic and Faroese individuals in the admission process was official Danish government policy that had been put in place in order to integrate the educated elites of its colonies with the university population in Copenhagen. As a medical student, Finsen discovered that his own anemia and tiredness was less when he stayed longer in sun. By 1893-94 he had crystallized his observations about various types and roles for light waves.
UV light for cutaneous Tuberculosis
Finsen discovered that the light closer to infra-red spectrum was better healer than that in the blue spectrum. He constructed device that filtered out ultra-violet light, and this could heal lesions of small-pox. In-contrast, he found that ultra-violet light could heal lesions of Lupus Vulgaris – a cutaneous form of tuberculosis. He started treating this first patient in November 1895, and was cured by February 1896.
The news spread like wildfire. Many patients with Lupus Vulgaris flocked Copenhagen. Finsen found a philanthropist GA Hagemann, who help establish Copenhagen Medical Light Institute in 1896. This was later renamed as Finsen’s Medical Light institute. Over next few years, Finsen could obtain more grants and support to produce more “light devices” that spread across sanatoriums in Denmark and Europe.
The Nobel Prize
There was some logic and proof beyond “Light therapy”. UV spectrum of light is bactericidal, something Finsen could demonstrate. By 1902, Finsen became more ill. He rapidly accumulated fluid in his abdomen (Ascitis) that had to be drain multiple times. He had developed cardiac cirrhosis. In the year 1903 he was awarded the Nobel Prize, then in its third year. The Nobel Prize for Finsen was a source of some controversy. The members of the committee paid a few visits to the Institute before reaching the final decision. Opponents claimed that Finsen’s contribution to medicine had too little theoretic foundation and was not academic enough.
Finsen said that ‘The supreme qualities of all science are honesty, reliability, and sober, healthy criticism’. He died on September 24, 1904. His light therapy lived on. Sunbathing was core to all TB sanatoriums. It was a standard of care for tuberculosis for years to come, till it was replaced by antibiotics in the 1950s.
