great reputation for elixirs and panaceas that he administered 

 with impressive magical ceremonies tinder favorable aspects 

 of the heavenly bodies. Never suffering from ill health himself 

 he ascribed his vigor to the amulets and powders of sym- 

 pathy that he wore on his body at the waxing and waning 

 moon, the only remedies, by the way, he was ever known to 

 prescribe gratis. He had the good fortune to be entirely 

 exempt from headache while his colleague Dr. Maier was 

 frequently tortured by this affliction; this circumstance led 

 Guarinonius to speak boastingly, whereupon Maier jocosely 

 remarked that headache only attacked persons who were not 

 quite without brains, a cheap witticism that the proud Doctor 

 never forgave. 



Dr. Michael Maier was a younger man and much better 

 educated; he held the office of private secretary to Rudolph, 

 as well as physician, and rejoiced in the titles Doctor of 

 Medicine, Doctor of Philosophy, Imperial Palatine Count and 

 Knight of the Holy Roman Empire ; he was a philosopher of 

 the Rosicrucian stamp although that mystical fraternity had 

 not yet disturbed the scientific and literary world by its 

 extraordinary assumptions and claims ; he was also a master 

 in theosophy and attempted to give a hermetic interpretation 

 to the mythologies of ancient' Greece and Rome. Maier was 

 especially intimate with the Emperor and remained in his 

 service until the death of his Majesty; later in life he 

 published a series of incomprehensible theosophical books, 

 now highly valued by bibliophiles for their singular engravings 

 and rarity. 



Of similar intellectual bias was Dr. Oswald Croll. of 

 Hesse, who held the post of physician in ordinary to 

 Christian, Prince of Anhalt, before he joined the corps 

 attached to the palace on the Hradschin. He too was a dis- 

 ciple of Paracelsus and adopted his views on astral virtues, 



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