Adolf Mayer

Adolf Eduard Mayer ( born August 9, 1843 in Oldenburg, † December 25, 1942 in Heidelberg ) was a German agricultural chemist. He is considered one of the pioneers of Virology.

• 2.1 tobacco mosaic disease

Life

Youth and studies

Adolf Mayer was born in 1843 in Oldenburg, the first son of a high school teacher Karl August Mayer ( 1808-1894 ). His mother Louise Julie was the daughter of the chemist Leopold Gmelin. Mayer first visited the Lyceum in Mannheim. Since he was interested in his youth very much for science, he later switched to the grammar school at Mannheim in 1860 and made its conclusion. From 1860 to 1862 he studied mathematics and chemistry (including with Karl Weltzien ) at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe. In 1862 he enrolled at the University of Heidelberg, where he received his doctorate in 1864 with summa cum laude in chemistry, physics and mathematics.

Initial studies

After working in Gent (6 months in 1894 with August Kekule ) and experience in chemical factories in Belgium Mayer returned to Germany. He worked there from 1865 to 1866 as an assistant at the University of Halle, where he worked under the influence of the famous agricultural scientist Julius Kühn in agricultural studies. From 1867 to 1868, he was an assistant at the Agricultural Experimental Station Karlsruhe. At this he conducted research on the " production of organic plant matter in the exclusion of the light rays ".

Return to Heidelberg

In 1869 he completed his habilitation in Heidelberg with the theme " studies of the alcoholic fermentation, the fabric needs and metabolism of Hefepflanze ". Reviewers of this work included the botanist Wilhelm Hofmeister and chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen. In 1872 he married Johanna Maria Sofie Rolligs in Heidelberg ( 1853-1938 ), with whom he had four children. After his habilitation Mayer first worked as a lecturer at the University of Heidelberg. Only in the year 1875 he was appointed professor. During this time in Heidelberg, the focus is in creating Mayers. In 1869, Mayer had published his work on " The fertilizer capital and exploitation ". This refuted the Raubbautheorie Justus von Liebig and brought Mayer much resentment in parts of the former chemist circles one. In addition, Mayer wrote at this time his main work " Textbook of Agricultural Chemistry ," which represented a foundational work of the entire sector.

Working in the Netherlands

After a few years in Heidelberg Mayer went in 1876 as a teacher of agricultural chemistry and Agrikulturtechnologie to the Agricultural College in Wageningen, Netherlands. 1877 Mayer was director of the recently founded state experiment station where until 1886 he made especially pioneering work on the tobacco mosaic disease by 1882. In 1886 he was appointed a member of the State Commission for the investigation of the state of agriculture in the Netherlands.

Tobacco mosaic disease

Middle of the 19th century spread to the Netherlands, a plant disease of which resulted in a speckled black and bright pattern on plant leaves and crop failures in the Dutch tobacco. Mayer in 1879 made ​​aware of the local farmers in this disease, and he dedicated himself to this phenomenon. In the Gronings Tijdschrift voor Landbouwkunde Mayer named the discolorations in 1882 for the first time tobacco mosaic disease. The tobacco mosaic disease is caused by a virus. Viruses, however, were entirely unknown at this time, and Mayer pioneered in conducting research. He examined the affected plants, but could find neither fungi nor bacteria in filtrates. Due to the small size of these viruses were for Mayer in the former light microscopes simply not visible. Mayer put forth a filtrate of the vegetable juice and injected it healthy tobacco plants. These were then also the symptoms of the disease. He concluded that it was not a hereditary disease and the disease agent must be in the filtrate. Mayer had unwittingly done with this experiment, the first viral transmission. However, Mayer came to a wrong conclusion: He made small bacteria responsible for the disease.

In the years that followed Dmitri Iosifovich Ivanovsky and Martinus Willem Beijerinck Mayer's former colleague dealt intensively with the pathogen. Beijerinck discovered, among other things Ultrafiltrierbarkeit of the pathogen. Only in 1935, the virus was isolated and crystallized.

Last years and work

After his retirement in 1903 Mayer returned to Heidelberg. In addition to scientific publications, he published especially at this time (some under the pseudonym Eduard Maydolf ) numerous works with economic and philosophical content. In total there are more than 220 publications from him before. Mayer died on 25 December 1942 in Heidelberg at the age of 99 years.

Honors

Works (selection)

• This fertilizer capital and overexploitation: A wirthschaftliche viewing on a scientific basis, Heidelberg, 1869
• Textbook of agricultural chemistry in forty lectures, 2 vols, Heidelberg, 1871
• The study of the chemical ferments or enzymology, Heidelberg, 1882