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Gerrit Meijer: Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands, and
Richard F.A. Vogel: Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Gossen's life
Heinrich Wilhelm Joseph Hermann Gossen was born on September 7, 1810 in the German - then Prussian - city of Duren, halfway between Aachen and Cologne. His father, Joseph was the issue of a long line of tax collectors; his mother was Mechthildes born Scholl. Hermann Heinrich, as he styled himself later, visited several Gymnasia in the Rhineland following the displacements of his parents. In 1829 he left the Gymnasium prematurely to study for the independent Abitur, because the Gymnasium went too slow for his liking. He then went to study, first at the University of Bonn, then Berlin, then Bonn again. His studies mainly included what would now be called Political Science: Kameralwissenschaft, Staatswissenschaft and Law, but he also took courses in his favoured subject, mathematics and in astronomy. After the conclusion of his studies he fulfilled his obligatory year of military service in the cavalry of the Prussian army.
Having completed his university studies he wrote several theses that were required for the examination to become a Referendar. He passed with only sufficient marks. As a Referendar, as indeed in all subsequent posts he kept, he had to face continuous complaints about the lax way he discharged his duties. From the hindsight of the most recent medical discoveries it is quite plain that he suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder, a complaint caused by an insufficient blood flow through the frontal lobes of the brain, an underdevelopment of the nucleus caudatus and a low production of the neurotransmitters dopamine and serotonin. Both his traits as a typical "lifelong student", interested in all and everything, and the failure to concentrate on his duties point clearly to this conclusion.
At about the same time he began developing the ideas that were to turn into his famous book 20 years later. In 1844 Gossen finally, much later than was usual, moved up one step and became a Regierungsassessor in Erfurt. As before, his career in Erfurt was marked on the one hand by the appreciation of his superiors for the broad spectre of his knowledge and insight and on the other hand continuous complaints about the lax way he discharged his...