ns of his biographical
dictionary, leaving a distinct suggestion that the invention was his.
Further confusion for later generations resulted from some ambiguous
entries in the _Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie_ of 1888. The name
"multiplier" seems not to have originated with Schweigger himself.
Speter credits it to Meineke as "working" editor of Schweigger's
_Journal_, but Seebeck seems to have used it much earlier.[15]

Conceding priority of conception to Schweigger (Cumming has not been a
real competitor on this point) does not alter the fact that all three
seem to have reached their results independently of one another, that
the first work of each on this subject was published within a period of
five months, that there were significant differences in their
conceptions of the uses and the optimum design of their devices and that
between them they provided an adequate foundation for the subsequent
development of the galvanometer to become the primary
electrical-measuring instrument.

In the matter of publication, Schweigger, as editor of what was
popularly called Schweigger's _Journal_, had an obvious advantage, and
presented his experiments beginnings on page 1 of the first volume of
his _Journal_ for 1821, published January 1 of that year.[16] Oersted's
paper had appeared two volumes previously. He began by referring to
Oersted's discovery as "the most interesting to be presented in a
thousand years of the history of magnetism." He was, in fact, so
impressed with the epochal nature of Oersted's achievement that he
commemorated it by giving his _Journal_ a second title so that "volume
one" of the new title could begin in the year after Oersted's
publication.

Poggendorf, as a relatively junior student, had no such easy access to
publicity, but he had a staunch admirer in one of his professors, Paul
Erman at the University of Berlin. Erman added a seven-page postscript
on Poggendorf's invention to his book _Outline of the Physical Aspects
of the Electro-chemical Magnetism Discovered by Professor Oersted_,
published before April 1821,[17] with an introductory paragraph:

Herr Poggendorf, who is one of the most excellent ornaments of the
lecture room and laboratory of the University here, carried out a
very coherent and well-conceived investigation of electro-chemical
magnetism, leading step-by-step to a method of amplifying this
activity-phenomenon by means of itself.

The postscript begins by r