Phototherapy

Abstract

As stated in NATURE, July 11, p. 259, Prof. Finsen of Copenhagen proposed, in 1893, that patients suffering from small-pox should be kept in rooms from which the chemical rays of light are excluded by means of red curtains or red glass. He was anticipated in this treatment by John Gaddesden, who wrote the famous medical treatise “Rosa Medicinæ,” and died A.D. 1361. He cured a son of King Edward I. of small-pox by wrapping him in scarlet cloth in a bed and room with scarlet hangings. He says of the result, “est bona cura; et curavi eum in sequenti sine vestigio variolarum,” “Diet. of Nat. Biogr.,” and “Biographie Générale.”