Victor Meyer

Abstract

VICTOR MEYER was born on September 8, 1848, and died on August 8, 1897. He studied chemistry at Heidelberg, under Bunsen, and at Berlin, under Baeyer. His first official appointment was at Stuttgart, whence he was called, in 1872, to the chair of Chemistry at the Zürich Polytechnic. In 1885 he went to Göttingen, and in 1889, on the retirement of Bunsen, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Heidelberg. The later years of his life were clouded by ill-health. His almost abnormal mental activity allowed him no rest, and he suffered greatly from insomnia. To the effects of this malady on a highly sensitive nervous organisation must be ascribed his tragic death in the midst of a career which, brilliant though it was, gave promise of stilt greater things in the future.