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Updated: June 28, 2025
They extend for two octaves above the violet of the spectrum and are too short to affect the eye as light, although they affect photographic plates. They are the friend of man when he uses them in moderation as Finsen did in the famous blue light treatment. But they tolerate no familiarity. To let them =20 particularly the shorter of the rays enter the eye is to invite trouble.
His clear head had already asked the question: if the blue rays of the sun can penetrate deep enough into the skin to cause injury, why should they not be made to do police duty there, and catch and kill offending germs in short, to heal? Finsen had demonstrated the correctness of the theory that the chemical rays have power to kill germs.
He was even then groping for his life-work, without knowing it, for it was always light, light the source or avenue or effect of it that held him. And presently his work found him. It has been said that Finsen was a sick man. A mysterious malady with dropsical symptoms clutched him from the earliest days with ever tightening grip, and all his manhood's life he was a great but silent sufferer.
But it was achieved with infinite toil and patience, by the most painstaking experiments, many times repeated to make sure. In his method of working Finsen was eminently conservative and thorough. Nothing "happened" with him. There was ever behind his doings a definite purpose for which he sought a way, and the higher the obstacles piled up the more resolutely he set his teeth and kept right on.
The butterflies, on the other hand, liked the red light only to sleep in. It was made clear by many such experiments that the chemical rays, and they only, had power to stimulate, to "stir life." Finsen called it that himself. In the language of the children, he was getting "warm."
Then, in three more years, they awarded him the great Nobel prize for signal service to humanity, and criticism was silenced. All the world applauded. "They gave it to me this year," said Finsen, with his sad little smile, "because they knew that next year it would have been too late." And he prophesied truly. He died nine months later. All that is here set down seems simple enough.
In the published account of his early experiments Finsen foreshadows it in the words, "That the beginning has been made with the hurtful effects of this force is odd enough, since without doubt its beneficial effect is far greater."
So they applied innocently for permission to entertain some "friends from the country," and the party was held in Finsen's room. Great was the scandal when the opposition newspapers exploited the feasting of the tax refusers in the sacred precincts of the university. To the end of his days Finsen chuckled over the way they stole a march on the Dean.
It is probable that the beneficial influence of counter-irritants, such as blisters, and exposure to the Finsen light and other forms of rays, is to be attributed in part to the increased flow of blood to the infected tissues. Artificial Hyperæmia.
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