Niels Finsen

Niels Ryberg Finsen was born on December 15, 1860, in Tórshavn in the Faroe Islands. After medical studies in Copenhagen, he developed progressive cardiomyopathy and liver cirrhosis in his twenties, motivating his lifelong research into the therapeutic properties of solar and artificial light.

Finsen demonstrated that concentrated ultraviolet radiation possesses powerful bactericidal effects. In 1895, he constructed the Finsen light lamp and successfully cured patients suffering from lupus vulgaris (tuberculosis of the skin), a previously disfiguring and incurable condition. In 1903, he became Denmark's first Nobel laureate in medicine, donating a major portion of his prize money to the Finsen Institute for crippled and diseased children.