272 GREAT MEN OF SCIENCE 



to be accepted, Mayer found that they were actually passing 

 entirely under other names, not merely abroad, but even in 

 Germany. This also finally extended to the daily news- 

 papers, so that Mayer, who was a very popular doctor in his 

 birthplace, soon began to be looked at askance there as 

 someone who pretends to have laid claim to the discoveries 

 of others. After having been repeatedly repulsed by the 

 editors of German learned periodicals, and after having also 

 written to the Paris Academy without success, he turned 

 to a German daily newspaper, which was widely read in 

 learned circles, and which he regarded as of sufficiently good 

 standing to serve as medium for a public explanation and for 

 making his discovery known under his own name. His con- 

 tribution was also accepted; but soon after there appeared in 

 the same newspaper an article which, written apparently 

 from a competent writer, made Mayer and his discovery 

 appear ridiculous and unscientific.^ 



Mayer now repeatedly applied to this newspaper, which 

 was owned by a publishing house of Stuttgart and Tubingen 

 of high reputation, to insert a suitable correction; but 

 without success. 



In this way, having been tortured for over five years 

 by similar experiences, Mayer became more and more ner- 

 vously excited; finally, on a sunny May morning in the year 

 1850 he suddenly sprang out of the window, after a sleepless 

 night. The window was thirty feet above the ground and 



1 The article was signed by a doctor of philosophy. The same 

 doctor was soon afterwards received into the university of Tubingen as 

 Privatdozent. Another Prwatdozent, on the other hand, Eugen Duhring 

 in Berlin, who had thoroughly emphasised Mayer's achievements for the 

 first time in historical connection in an article called 'Critical History of 

 the Principles of Mechanics' (1872), which had been given a prize on the 

 decision of Wilhelm Weber, was driven out of the university, when in the 

 second edition of this work (1876) he added some strong expressions, and 

 in another publication exposed further scandal in the university. All 

 this shows how little was thought of Robert Mayer, both in his own home 

 university, as also in the capital, where Helmholtz was then representing 

 physics. 



