This is the fifth in a series of articles that celebrate the lives of the Nobel Prize laureates whose names grace the 125 streets of Laureate Park. These laureates are extraordinary men and women – many of whom are alive today – who through their lifetime achievements have made our daily lives immeasurably richer, often in ways not readily evident. Through these articles, we hope to introduce you to these exceptional individuals and encourage you to learn more about them.
Many of us often visit Google Street View, if only to compare the houses of former high school classmates with our own to see how well we’re doing. In the Faroe Islands, the equivalent of that Google app is called Sheep View. Wait, what? Where?
Until recently, only avid stamp collectors seem to have heard of the Faroes, an archipelago of 18 islands positioned roughly equidistant from Iceland, Norway and Scotland in the Norwegian Sea. That is unfortunate because the 50,000 residents of this remarkable country (Faroe Islands) within a country (Denmark) enjoy the fruits of a highly developed, prosperous economy and a vibrant, productive democracy. Plus, allegedly, the world’s fastest Internet, a fact that might make some Lake Nona residents swallow hard with humility.
One young Faroese lady, frustrated in her attempts to gain Google’s attention to map her native islands in Street View, took matters in her own hands and affixed cameras to several of the territory’s population of 80,000 sheep, dubbing her invention Sheep View. Her enterprise quickly gained fame worldwide and ultimately shamed Google into dispatching one of its camera cars to photograph the streets of the Faroes, thereby putting the archipelago literally on the map.
It was here, in this land of brutal beauty, that Niels Ryberg Finsen came into this world as the rumblings of Civil War stirred in this country. Finsen was of noble Icelandic stock, and his father served as what we would call elsewhere a governor of the islands. Finsen initially proved to be a mediocre student, first struggling at school in Denmark and Iceland but ultimately obtaining success at medical school in Copenhagen. After gaining his medical degree, Finsen stayed on at Copenhagen University, working as a prosector, where he dissected anatomical specimens for classroom demonstrations. Finsen pursued this job for only a few years for, by this time, he may have already suspected that he suffered from Niemann-Pick disease, in which excess fat forms in cells. Patients with this disease suffer from progressive loss of function of nerves, the brain, and other organs. So, in 1893, Finsen left this university post to pursue scientific studies full-time.
As Finsen’s condition steadily worsened, he sought relief by sunbathing, which led him to undertake research on the curative effects of certain wavelengths of light in the treatment of disease, particularly Lupus Vulgaris, a form of tuberculosis that horribly disfigures the skin. Still in his 30s, Finsen founded the Finsen Institute of Phototherapy where, through the use of specialized equipment developed at the institute, he and his colleagues treated 800 patients, over 730 of whom responded favorably to the treatment. Through intensive experimentation, Finsen had discovered the bactericidal effects of ultraviolet light applied through crystal lenses in specified doses.
In his final years, Finsen was confined to a wheelchair. He left this life in 1904, at age 43, one year after obtaining a Nobel Prize for his discoveries related to light therapy, achievements that still resonate today in the field of dermatology. This remarkable man, still the only Faroese to win a Nobel prize, managed in such a brief lifespan to father four children while making contributions of historic proportions to medicine.
So, if you or any of your Lake Nona neighbors visit the Faroe Islands, please let the locals know that we have done our small part to honor that country’s most accomplished native son, Niels Finsen, even if Google Street View is not yet available on our own Finsen Street. Perhaps several cameras strapped to the Longhorn cattle that graze Lake Nona’s pastures might fix that, as we assert our own “Cow View.” Then again, maybe not; although Google Street View has saturated the streets of the Faroe Islands, there is one place in the country that app has not yet penetrated, and that is the pedestrianized Niels Finsens Gøta (Street) in downtown Torshavn, the national capital. Only in Torshavn and Laureate Park (plus Copenhagen), and nowhere else, is Niels Finsen honored with the name of a street. Little did we know how much we share with our Faroese counterparts in our mutual admiration for a great Faroese Nobel laureate … and our common aspiration to have Google Street View thoroughly map our neighborhoods!
Next month: Derek Walcott, Caribbean Homer
Dennis Delehanty moved to Laureate Park with his wife, Elizabeth, from the Washington, D.C., area in mid-2018. Dennis completed a long career in international affairs at the U.S. Postal Service, the United Nations, and the U.S. Department of State, jobs that required extensive global travel and the acquisition of foreign languages. You can contact Dennis at donnagha@gmail.com.
