Siegmund Mayer (December 27, 1842 – September, 1910) was a German physiologist and

histologist Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vis ...

. Mayer was born in

Bechtheim Bechtheim is an ''Ortsgemeinde'' – a municipality belonging to a ''Verbandsgemeinde'', a kind of collective municipality – in the Alzey-Worms district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' of Wonnegau, who ...

Rhenish Hesse Rhenish Hesse or Rhine HesseDickinson, Robert E (1964). ''Germany: A regional and economic geography'' (2nd ed.). London: Methuen, p. 542. . (german: Rheinhessen) is a region and a former government district () in the German state of Rhineland- ...

. He studied at the Universities of

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

Giessen Giessen, spelled Gießen in German (), is a town in the German state (''Bundesland'') of Hesse, capital of both the district of Giessen and the administrative region of Giessen. The population is approximately 90,000, with roughly 37,000 univer ...

and

Tübingen Tübingen (, , Swabian: ''Dibenga'') is a traditional university city in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, and developed on both sides of the Neckar and Ammer rivers. about one in three ...

, where in 1865 he obtained his

doctorate A doctorate (from Latin ''docere'', "to teach"), doctor's degree (from Latin ''doctor'', "teacher"), or doctoral degree is an academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism ''li ...

. He subsequently worked with

Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...

(1821–1894) in

Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (; 29 December 1816 – 23 April 1895) was a German physician and physiologist. His work as both a researcher and teacher had a major influence on the understanding, methods and apparatus used in almost all branche ...

(1816–1895) and

Julius Friedrich Cohnheim Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (20 July 1839 – 15 August 1884) was a German-Jewish pathologist. Biography Cohnheim was born at Demmin, Pomerania. He studied at the universities of Würzburg, Marburg, Greifswald, and Berlin, receiving his doctoral de ...

(1839–1884) in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as ...

, and with

Ernst Wilhelm von Brücke Ernst Wilhelm Ritter von Brücke (6 July 1819 – 7 January 1892) was a German physician and physiologist. He is credited with contributions made in many facets of physiology. Biography He was born Ernst Wilhelm Brücke in Berlin. He graduate ...

(1819–1892) in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. In 1869 he was habilitated for

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

at Vienna, and during the next year became Karl Ewald Konstantin Hering's assistant in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

. In 1872 he became an associate professor and in 1887 a full professor. From 1880 he was director at the newly founded

institute An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations ( research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes ca ...

histology Histology, also known as microscopic anatomy or microanatomy, is the branch of biology which studies the microscopic anatomy of biological tissues. Histology is the microscopic counterpart to gross anatomy, which looks at larger structures vi ...

. Mayer made several important contributions particularly concerning the

of the

heart The heart is a muscular organ in most animals. This organ pumps blood through the blood vessels of the circulatory system. The pumped blood carries oxygen and nutrients to the body, while carrying metabolic waste such as carbon dioxide to t ...

and vessels,

respiration Respiration may refer to: Biology * Cellular respiration, the process in which nutrients are converted into useful energy in a cell ** Anaerobic respiration, cellular respiration without oxygen ** Maintenance respiration, the amount of cellul ...

and

intestines The gastrointestinal tract (GI tract, digestive tract, alimentary canal) is the tract or passageway of the digestive system that leads from the mouth to the anus. The GI tract contains all the major organs of the digestive system, in humans and ...

. He was one of the first to describe

chromaffin cells Chromaffin cells, also called pheochromocytes (or phaeochromocytes), are neuroendocrine cells found mostly in the medulla of the adrenal glands in mammals. These cells serve a variety of functions such as serving as a response to stress, monitor ...

in the

sympathetic nerve The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is one of the three divisions of the autonomic nervous system, the others being the parasympathetic nervous system and the enteric nervous system. The enteric nervous system is sometimes considered part of the ...

, and with Ewald Hering and Ludwig Traube, his name is associated with " Traube–Hering–Mayer waves", a phenomenon that deals with rhythmic variations in arterial blood pressure. Traube-Hering-Mayer waves
@

Who Named It ''Whonamedit?'' is an online English-language dictionary of medical eponyms and the people associated with their identification. Though it is a dictionary, many eponyms and persons are presented in extensive articles with comprehensive bibliograp ...

In addition to his scholarly papers published in scientific journals, he made contributions to Salomon Stricker's ''Handbuch der Lehre von den Geweben des Menschen und der Thiere'' (1872) and to Ludimar Hermann's ''Handbuch der Physiologie'' (1879). He was also author of ''Histologisches Taschenbuch'' (1887). Mayer died September 1910 in Prague.

Publications

* Studien zur Physiologie des Herzens und der Blutgefässe 6. Abhandlung: Über spontane Blutdruckschwankungen. Sitzungsberichte Akademie der Wissenschaften in Wien. Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Classe, Anatomie, 1876, 74: 281–307

References

''Sigmund Mayer''
@ the Jewish Encyclopedia, retrieved 5 April 2009.
''Siegmund Mayer''
@

, retrieved 5 April 2009. * Österreichisches Biographisches Lexikon 1815–1950, Bd. 5, 1972. , S. 446f. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mayer, Siegmund 1842 births 1910 deaths People from Alzey-Worms 19th-century German Jews German physiologists German histologists People from Rhenish Hesse