120 TRANSACTIONS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. [Vou. VIII. 
cerning the action of light upon living organisms, and especially to apply 
the results to the service of practical medicine.” Finsen fully recognized 
that his discoveries, important as they were, could only be regarded as a 
first step, not as a finality. 
It is said that in the first six months of its existence, only ten or 
twelve cases came to the Lys institut, and one nurse sufficed, but since 
its establishment, over two thousand patients, coming from all parts of 
the world have been treated, with a record of about 98 per cent. of cures; 
there are now six doctors on its staff, and it employs about sixty nurses. 
The work done there is chronicled in a special publication in Danish and 
German. McClure has a capital description of the way work goes on at» 
the Institute written by Cleveland Moffett, and I cannot do better than 
give you his charming word picture in full. : 
‘“‘Suppose we look in now at Finsen’s Light Institute and observe 
something of its practical working. One is struck first of all at the beauty 
of the place, set in the midst of lovely gardens, shaded by fine trees, and 
walled about with vines and flowers. No cheerless hospital this, but a 
handsome villa in the choicest part of Copenhagen. Here are the labora- 
tories and Finsen’s home, and just adjoining, a long white two-storey 
building where patients are treated; all this a gift of the Danish Govern- 
ment. As you glance through the hedges, you see a glow of red light 
like a foundry and figures moving behind wide-open doors. ‘These are 
the lupus patients, and the glare is that of the red-shaded Finsen lamps, 
for each lamp has the intensity of thirty-five thousand candles, and there 
are seven in one large room. 
‘The seven lamps with their glowing red curta’‘ns are seven centres 
of cheerfulness, and under each one you are surpired to see laughing, 
chattering groups, eight people to a lamp, four patients and four nurses. 
The patients lie comfortably on high cots and receive the light from four 
down-slanting tubes like telescopes, in which are the costly rock-crystal 
lenses and the water for eliminating the heat rays. These tubes the nurses 
move into position so as to focus an intense concentrated beam, yet suf- 
ficiently cool, upon the surface under treatment, usually some part of the 
face, and they also press the surface with a water-filled glass which serves 
the double purpose of freeing the tissues from blood and still further 
cooling the rays. That is about all there is to the treatment, which goes 
on thus in seances of an hour and a quarter a day for each patient, and, 
being quite painless, leads naturally to pleasant sociability in the various 
groups. 
‘“‘In moving about the room one sees patients of all ages, from four to 
seventy, and more women than men. They come from different countries 
