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Riis, Jacob A., 1849-1914

"Hero Tales of the Far North"

For two years he had been sending people
away whole and happy who came to him in despair. The wolf was
slain, and by this silent sufferer whose modest establishment was
all contained within a couple of small shanties in a corner of the
city hospital grounds, at Copenhagen.
There was a pause of amazed incredulity. The scientific men did not
believe it. Three years later, when the physician in charge of
Finsen's clinic told at the medical congress in Paris of the results
obtained at the Light Institute, his story was still received with a
polite smile. The smile became astonishment when, at a sign from
him, the door opened and twelve healed lupus patients came in, each
carrying a photograph of himself as he was before he underwent the
treatment. Still the doctors could not grasp it. The thing was too
simple as matched against all their futile skill.
But the people did not doubt. There was a rush from all over Europe
to Copenhagen. Its streets became filled with men and women whose
faces were shrouded in heavy bandages, and it was easy to tell the
new-comers from those who had seen "the professor." They came in
gloom and misery; they went away carrying in their faces the
sunshine that gave them back their life. Finsen never tired, when
showing friends over his Institute, of pointing out the joyous
happiness of his patients.


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