1904-5.] NIELS R. FINSEN—HIs LIFE AND WoRK. 121 
and speak various languages. Several are from England, attracted by 
the small cost of treatment, only sixty kroner a month (about eighteen 
dollars) for the very poor, or too kroner for those in better circumstances. 
Fancy being cured of lupus, actually cured, for a dollar a day: Here isa 
German girl busy with her sewing while she waits her turn at the lamp. 
She was meant to be pretty. Here is a man with his collar off, taking the 
treatment fast asleep, as often happens. And watch the nurses, very 
neat in their gray and white frocks, as they bend over their charges. Red 
spectacles guard their eyes against the dazzle, their arms are bared to the 
elbows, their hands are busy with the light, and on their faces is a glow 
which is partly an up-reflection of the rays and partly an outward reflec- 
tion of kind thoughts, for there is a peculiar dignity and sweetness in these 
Danish women. 
‘‘So the seance drowses along with a low buzz of talk and the regular 
clicking of the lamps as the clockwork feeds down the carbons. Sundays 
and week days alike throughout the year, the light cure is in operation, 
and has been now since 1896, in which time the actinic rays have shown 
abundantly what they can do in destroying the bacteria of lupus. Not 
in a few weeks, it is true, but surely, after such time as is required—some- 
times months, occasionally years when the disease is very bad. And it 
should be borne in mind that most of the cases received up to the present 
have been bad ones, lupus of twenty, thirty, or even forty years standing.’’* 
The stimulating action of light is clearly manifested in another 
manner also at the Lys-institute, for ‘‘both patients and nurses in Fin- 
sen’s clinic acquired a thicker growth of hair on those parts which were 
exposed repeatedly and for a long time to the powerful electric ray.’’+ 
The results claimed for the treatment of lupus vulgaris by concen- 
trated chemical rays, about 98 per cent. of cures, is a truly wonderful 
record, when all the failures of the past are reviewed with all their hope- 
lessness. And, so, many attempts have been made, and in many lands, 
to improve upon the original apparatus of Finsen; for the initial cost of 
the lamp, and the cost of its maintenance, and the cost of a special 
nurse for each patient, together with the length of time consumed for 
each treatment—one hour or more—and the prolonged period of treat- 
ment, several months, or perhaps years, have combined to render this 
form of treatment rather unpopular. It is quite impracticable to treat 
cases satisfactorily unless at a public institution, such as the one established 
by the great discoverer himself, or in a room specially arranged for the 
purpose and devoted to no other use. But, ingenious as many of the 
* Cleveland Moffett, ‘‘Dr. Finsen and The Story of His Achievement.” ‘‘McClure’s Magazine.” 
February, 1903. 
+ Freund, ‘‘ Radio-Therapy ’ 
