Niels Ryberg Finsen

On December 29, 1892, Finsen married Ingeborg Balslev, daughter of bishop Balslev at Ribe.

The couple had four children, of which the eldest boy died. His second son, Halldor was a physician and the elder daughter, Gudrun was married to Professor S. Lomholt, the head of the Department of Skin Diseases of the Finsen Institute.

Finsen’s heart trouble along with his general weakness and ascites confined him to a wheel chair.

Niels Ryberg Finsen was born on December 15, 1860, at Thorshavn in the Faroe Islands. He was the second oldest of the four children of Hannes Steingrim Finsen and Johanne Fröman.

In 1858, their family moved to Tórshavn from Iceland when his father took up the job of a Landfoged or revenue collector of the Faroe Islands. In 1871, he became the ‘amtmand’ of the islands.

When Finsen was four-year-old, his widowed father married his mother's cousin Birgitte Kirstine Formann, with whom he had six children.

Finsen received his early education in schools of Tórshavn but in 1874 he was enrolled at the Danish boarding school Herlufsholm, where his elder brother Olaf studied too.

Young Finsen’s grades were low at Herlufsholm. His rector claimed that Niels was "a boy of good heart but low skills and energy".

Finsen used to teach medical students in order to maintain a modest living.

In 1898, he was appointed professor at the University of Copenhagen. It was from here that his health started deteriorating. His disease however inspired him to sunbath and thus played an important role in his research.

He started collecting observations about animals seeking the sun, and reached the conclusion that the sun had very useful effect on the blood.

In 1893, he devised the treatment of small-pox in red light. He wrote about his findings in the book ‘Om Lysets Indvirkninger paa Huden’(On the effects of light on the skin) that came out the same year.

In 1895, he developed a way of treating lupus vulgaris by furthering the same method i.e. concentration of chemical rays free from heat rays.

His last publication was a study of his disease and his ways of battling it: ‘En Ophobning af Salt i Organismen’ (An accumulation of salt in the organism), published in 1904.

In 1899, he was proffered knighthood and he became Knight of the Order of Dannebrog, to which the Silver Cross was added after a few years.