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 referring to the "condenser [_Kondensator_] just brought to my attention by Herr Poggendorf" and explains that he cannot release his treatise "without preliminary announcement of this subject of the highest importance." (It can be inferred from the text that the name "condenser" was chosen because of the device's enhancing of magnetic measurements analogously to the enhancing of electric measurements by Volta's electrostatic "condenser.")
Immediately on reading the book, Schweigger published extracts, mainly of the postscript, with indignant comments on Erman's remissness (or worse) in having failed to mention Schweigger's prior work.[18]
However, Erman was not alone in his unawareness, if it was that, of Schweigger's discovery.
Rival editor Gilbert of the _Annalen der Physik_ reviewed Erman at much greater length than Schweigger, reprinting most of the postscript with evident enthusiasm, and stating in his preamble that the invention is attributed to "a young physicist studying here in Berlin, Herr Poggendorf."[19] Only in a footnote is the reader directed to another footnote in the next article in the volume, where Gilbert finally states that he "cannot leave unmentioned the fact that this amplifying apparatus seems to be due to Herr Professor Schweigger." He then quotes rather fully from Schweigger's first two papers.[16] Oersted in 1823 explained the situation thus: "The work of M. Poggendorf, having been mentioned in a book on electromagnetism by the celebrated M. Erman published very shortly after its discovery, became known to many scientists before that of M. Schweigger. This is the reason for the same apparatus carrying different names."[20]