VICTOR

See also:

• MEYER, CHRISTIAN ERICH HERMANN VON (18or-1869)
• MEYER, HEINRICH AUGUST WILHELM (1800-1873)
• MEYER, JULIUS LOTHAR (183o-1895)
• MEYER, KONRAD FERDINAND (1825-1898)
• VICTOR MEYER (1848-1897)
• MEYER, [MARIE] PAUL HYACINTHE (184o- )

MEYER (1848-1897)  , German chemist, was born at Berlin on the 8th of September 1848, and studied at Heidelberg University under R . W . Bunsen, H . F . M . Kopp, G . R . Kirchhoff and H . L . F . Helmholtz . At the age of twenty he entered J .

F . W . A .

Baeyer's laboratory at Berlin, attacking among other problems that of the composition of camphor . In 1871, on Baeyer's recommendation, he was engaged by II. von Fehling as his assistant at Stuttgart Polytechnic, but within a year he left to succeed J . Wislicenus at Zurich . There he remained for thirteen years, and it was during this period that he devised hiswell-known method for determining vapour densities, and carried out his experiments on the dissociation of the halogens . In 1882, on the death of W . Weith (1844-1881), professor of chemistry at Zurich University, he undertook to continue the lectures on benzene derivatives, and this led him to the discovery of thiophen . In 1885 he was chosen to succeed Hans Hubner (1837-1884) in the professorship of chemistry at Gottingen, where stereo-chemical questions especially engaged his attention; and in 1889, on the resignation of his old master, Bunsen, he was appointed to the chair of chemistry in Heidelberg . He died on the 8th of August 1897 . In recognition of his brilliant experimental powers, and his numerous contributions to chemical science, he was awarded the Davy medal by the Royal Society in 1891 .