13 Facts About Viktor Meyer

Viktor Meyer was a German chemist and significant contributor to both organic and inorganic chemistry.

Viktor Meyer is best known for inventing an apparatus for determining vapour densities, the Viktor Meyer apparatus, and for discovering thiophene, a heterocyclic compound.

Viktor Meyer is sometimes referred to as Victor Meyer, a name used in some of his publications.

Viktor Meyer was born in Berlin in 1848, the son of trader and cotton printer Jacques Meyer and mother, Bertha.

Viktor Meyer's parents were Jewish, though he was not actively raised in the Jewish faith.

Viktor Meyer married a Christian woman, Hedwig Davidson, and raised his children as such.

Viktor Meyer entered the gymnasium at the age of ten in the same class as his two-year older brother Richard.

In 1865, when not yet 17 years old but pushed by his parents, Meyer began studying chemistry at the University of Berlin, the same year that August Wilhelm von Hofmann succeeded Eilhard Mitscherlich as the Chair of Chemistry there.

Viktor Meyer stayed one year with Bunsen for an area wide analysis of spring water.

At the age of 23 on Baeyer's recommendation, Viktor Meyer was engaged by Fehling as his assistant at Stuttgart Polytechnic, but within a year he left to succeed Johannes Wislicenus at Zurich.

Viktor Meyer always failed to recover completely, yet continued working.

Viktor Meyer took pills to fall asleep, but these had a damaging effect on his nervous system.

In one of his depressions, Viktor Meyer decided to take his own life, and committed suicide by taking cyanide.