var s_account="msnportalencarta"; MSN home Mail My MSN Sign in ... more Hotmail Messenger My MSN MSN Directory Air Tickets/Travel Autos City Guides Election 2008 ... More Additional Reference Materials Thesaurus Translations Multimedia Other Resources Education Resources Math Help Foreign Language Help Project Planner ... Help Encarta Search Search Encarta about Niels Ryberg Finsen Also on Encarta 7 tips for funding an online degree How to succeed in the fashion industry without being a top designer Presidential Myths Quiz Advertisement Niels Ryberg Finsen Encyclopedia Article Find Print E-mail Blog It Multimedia 1 item Niels Ryberg Finsen (1860-1904), Danish physician and Nobel Prize winner who made important discoveries regarding the use of light waves in the treatment of disease. Finsen was born in T³rshavn, the capital of the Faeroe Islands, a part of Denmark located north of the British Isles. After completing his early schooling in Denmark and in Reykjavk, Iceland, Finsen attended the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, receiving his medical degree in 1891. He then taught anatomy in the university's Department of Surgery, leaving in 1893 to devote himself full-time to studying âphototherapy,â or the therapeutic effects of light. In 1896 he established the Light Institute in Copenhagen. For his groundbreaking contributions to the new field of phototherapy, Niels Finsen received the 1903 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Even as a child, Finsen had been fascinated by the effects of sunlight on living things. His research as an undergraduate included experiments in which he observed how sunlight affected the tissue of insects, tadpoles, and other animals. Later Finsen decided to turn his efforts toward the treatment of human diseases. In 1893 he began to study the use of filtered sunlight in the treatment of skin lesions caused by smallpox, a viral disease. Red lightâthat is, light from the red end of the spectrumâwith its harmful heat rays filtered out, proved successful in promoting the healing of smallpox lesions. After publishing key papers on phototherapy in 1893 and 1894, Finsen began research into the treatment of lupus vulgaris, a disfiguring skin disease caused by bacteria. Finsen had noted the findings of previous researchers, who discovered that light could kill | |
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