The learned scoffed. There were some of them who had read of the
practice in the Middle Ages of smothering smallpox patients in red
blankets, giving them red wine to drink and hanging the room with
scarlet. Finsen had not heard of it, and was much interested.
Evidently they had been groping toward the truth. How they came upon
the idea is not the only mystery of that strange day, for they knew
nothing of actinic rays or sunlight analyzed. But Finsen calmly
invited the test, which was speedy in coming.
They had smallpox in Bergen, Norway, and there the matter was put to
the proof with entire success; later in Sweden and in Copenhagen.
The patients who were kept under the red light recovered rapidly,
though some of them were unvaccinated children, and bad cases. In no
instance was the most dangerous stage of the disease, the festering
stage, reached; the temperature did not rise again, and they all
came out unscarred.
Finsen pointed out that where other methods of treatment such as
painting the face with iodine or lunar caustic, or covering it with
a mask or with fat, had met with any success in the past, the same
principle was involved of protecting the skin from the light, though
the practitioner did not know it.
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