Die modernen Theorien der Chemie

Lothar Meyer, Die Modernen Theorien der Chemie undihre Bedeutung fur die Chemische Statik, 3d ed. (Breslau, Maruschke undBerendt, 1877), pp. 158159. 

What helped make Mendeleev s system seem more plausible was the coincidental publication of Lothar Meyer s periodic table. Meyer had attended the 1860 Karlsruhe conference just as Mendeleev had, and, like Mendeleev, he had gone away convinced that there was some pattern that united the elements through atomic weights. He had sketched out an incomplete table of elements in his book Die modernen Theorien der Chemie (1864), and in 1868 he worked out a much more complete table. He did not publish this until 1870, by which time he was fully aware of Mendeleev s work. In addition to providing independent confirmation of Mendeleev s system, Meyer also added a supporting observation, showing that there was a periodic relationship between atomic number and atomic volume. Atomic volume represents the volume occupied by one mole of an element in its solid state. Meyer showed that atomic volume equaled atomic weight divided by the density of the solid. 

Tables of vapour densities in Lothar Meyer, Die modernen Theorien der Chemie 1883, 53 f. Muir, Principles of Chemistry, Cambridge, 1889, 38-45 Lowry, Historical Introduction to Chemistry, 1936, 361.

Lothar Meyer s book. Die modernen Theorien der Chemie the first edition of which appeared in 1864, extraordinarily clear statement of the fundamental principles of chemistry, which had a great influence. 

The other chemist associated with the introduction of the periodic table was Lothar Meyer. In 1864, after his conversion to the new system of atomic weights by Cannizzaro, he published an important book. Die modernen Theorien der Chemie, which was influential in bringing about acceptance of the new system. The book contained a table of the elements arranged horizontally in terms of increasing atomic weight, and showed that similar elements fell in vertical columns. However, some elements were omitted, and like his contemporaries Lothar Meyer concentrated more on the differences between atomic weights of similar elements than on the principle of periodicity. 

As the preface of Yoshida s textbook shows, Japanese chemists of the Meiji period read various chemistry textbooks published in Europe and the United States. One can find both Lothar Meyer s famous Die modernen Theorien der Chemie and ihre Bedeutung fiir die chemische Statik and Mendeleev s Principles of Chemistry in university libraries in Japan.Lothar Meyer s Outlines of Theoretical Chemistry was translated into Japanese between 1894 and 1895. One can thus surmise that there must be direct influences on Japanese chemistry from the textbooks by discovers of the periodic law. 

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