A method of destroying pathogens disposed upon an epidermis includes providing a hand held device including a grip and a lamp, transmitting far-UVC light via the lamp, and filtering the transmitted far-UVC light to attenuate portions of transmitted UVC light that have a wavelength known to cause damage to an epidermis of a human. The epidermis is scanned by tracing the hand held device over a localized area of the epidermis thereby illuminating the localized area with the filtered far-UVC light. The filtered far-UVC light destroys pathogens disposed upon the epidermis while not causing adverse biological damage to the epidermis.