freely from the materials before us so as to present to our readers as faithfully as possible the considerations on the strength of which the claims of Mayer first became recognized.
As regards the life of Mayer the details are meager. He was born in Heilbronn, Würtemberg, November 25, 1814. He received his early education in the gymnasium of his native town, and studied medicine at Tübingen, finishing his course in Munich and Paris. In 1840 he made a voyage on a Dutch freighter to Java, and spent the summer of that year in professional practice at Batavia. Returning to Heilbronn he first became county wound-physician, and afterward physician to the city, and while giving the main portion of his time to professional labors he devoted himself systematically, and with great assiduity, to original scientific researches on the wide subject of the "Conservation of Forces." In the revolution of 1848 Dr. Mayer took what was called the side of order, which roused against him the antagonism of many of his neighbors. He believed that he had made very important discoveries which were unrecognized and were ascribed to others, while his scientific works were attacked and discredited in a way that preyed upon his feelings and disturbed his mind. This was aggravated by the loss of his children, and he fell into an excited and sleepless condition. Being suddenly seized with a fit of delirium on May 28, 1850, he quitted his bed and leaped from a second-story window, thirty feet high, to the street below. He recovered from the shock, but his mind was so seriously affected that he was sent to a lunatic asylum. Dr. Mülburger, physician to the institution, states that the equilibrium of his mental and emotional nature was seriously affected, one of the symptoms being that, "if you conversed with him about a scientific topic, it was very hard to keep him to the point: his ideas were profound, it is true, surprisingly so, but they came disconnected; they went to the heart of the subject, but they did not hold on to it. He was subject to occasional fits of uncontrollable rage, and on feeling them coming on he would ask to be put in one of the strong cells of the asylum. These fits came on only three or four times during the four months he spent at the asylum, and they did not last long. He had a very strong thirst for spirituous liquors, an inclination which was the result of his mental malady, and the gratification of which increased it." He was at length restored to health, and busied himself with grape culture at Heilbronn. He died in his native town on March 20, 1878, aged sixty-three years.
The following lucid account of Mayer's labors and judicial estimate of his position were made by Professor Tyndall in 1871, and are so admirable that we quote them in full, in preference to anything that it would be possible for us to write:
