NOTES.
(¹) Wenzel (Venceslas) Payer or Bayer, of Ellbogen, born in the year 1488, studied at Leipzic, and took his degrees in 1507. Highly protected by the counts Schlick, to whom the greatest part of the royal domain of Ellbogen, and even Carlsbad, was mortgaged for the money they often lent to the kings of Bohemia, those rich and mighty noblemen sent Payer to Italy at their own expense. Inflammed by the sight of the remains of ancient baths and of some modern bathing establishments, he paid, on his return home, a particular attention to the hot springs of Carlsbad, where he first recommanded their internal use and the douche, so much employed then in Italy. The title of his work is: Wenceslai Payer de Cubitu Tractatus de Thermis Caroli IV Imperatoris prope Ellbogen sitis. Lipsiae, 1521; 2. edition, 1614. He died on the 11th December 1526, thirty-eight years of age. The mode of his death is uncertain; but he died gloriously, as proved by two silver medals, coined by order of the counts Schlick, proprietors of the celebrated silver mines and of the mint of Joachimsthal, near Carlsbad, with Payer’s effigy and the honourable inscription: Cum pariter omnibus moriendum, non tardè sed clarè mori optandum. Those medals are at Vienna in the imperial numismatic Museum. Payer being represented as Curtius, precipitating himself into an abyss, it is highly probable that he died victim of his scientific
