Meyer was born in
Insterburg in the
Province of Prussia (now
Chernyakhovsk, Russia). He studied medicine in
Königsberg,
Leipzig,
Berlin and again in Königsberg. After his promotion to
Doctor of medicine in Königsberg he worked with
Oswald Schmiedeberg, one of the founders of
pharmacology as an independent scientific discipline, in
Strasbourg. In 1881 he was appointed to the Chair of Pharmacology in Dorpat (now
Tartu,
Estonia). Also in 1881, he married Doris née Boehm. Together they had three sons, Kurt Heinrich (1883–1952), Arthur Woldemar (1885–1933) and Friedrich Horst (1889–1894). Between 1884 and 1904 Meyer occupied the Chair of Pharmacology in
Marburg where he worked with
Emil Adolf von Behring and
Otto Loewi, winner of the 1936
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In 1904, Meyer moved to Vienna, and Loewi joined him until he was appointed to the Chair of Pharmacology in
Graz. Ernst Peter Pick joined the department in 1911. Pick would later succeed Meyer as Chair. During Meyer's time in Vienna, he worked with three scientists who would eventually win the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
George Hoyt Whipple won the award in 1934,
Corneille Heymans won in 1938 and
Carl Ferdinand Cori was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1947. Meyer retired in 1924 and remained in Vienna. Meyer's later life was impacted by
National Socialism. His second son, Arthur was a well-known surgeon in Berlin who was one of the first to successfully carry out surgical
embolectomy in massive
pulmonary embolism. On 14 November 1933 Arthur shot his wife and then committed
suicide. Arthur's wife was
Jewish, and allegations were made that he was also Jewish. In 1938, Meyer and Pick were expelled from the
German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina as "non-
Aryan". After this, Pick emigrated to the United States. Meyer died the same year in Vienna. Meyer’s eldest son,
Kurt Heinrich Meyer, was research director of
BASF from 1920 to 1929 later served as a professor of chemistry of the
University of Geneva. He supervised the doctoral thesis of
Edmond Henri Fischer, who with
Edwin Gerhard Krebs won the Nobel prize in physiology and medicine in 1992.
Horst Meyer (physicist), the son of Meyer's second son Arthur, was adopted by Kurt after Arthur's death. He grew up in Geneva, where he studied Physics at the University and in 1959 joined the Physics faculty of
Duke University, in Durham, NC, where he became Emeritus professor in 2005. ==Scientific achievements==