Why did Mendeleev’s periodic table gain wider acceptance after 1875?

Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table initially received little interest from the scientific community. However, it gained wide acceptance after 1875 primarily due to its remarkable predictive power.1

Mendeleev had such strong faith in his periodic law that he used it to predict the existence and specific properties of several then-unknown elements, leaving gaps in his table for them. The subsequent discovery of these elements—specifically gallium in 1875, scandium in 1879, and germanium in 1886—provided empirical evidence that validated his system.123

Additionally, Mendeleev’s work allowed him to identify errors in the previously accepted atomic weights of several known elements. By demonstrating that his table could accurately organize existing knowledge while successfully forecasting new discoveries, the periodic system gradually became the foundational framework for chemical theory.13