An illustration, created by Jacob von Falke, of a bust of Hippocrates (1887).

Cogan offers his advice to students on maintaining their health with his work, the Haven of Health. Through his education in medicine, Cogan familiarized himself with the widely accepted practice of Galenic Medicine. Renaissance scholars based their practices on the teachings of Claudius Galen. A Roman physician and philosopher from the second century, Galen is renowned for his medial theories and advancements in anatomy, pharmaceuticals, and humoral pathology [1]. Galen’s teachings dominated medical methodology until the mid-seventeenth century.

Cogan most frequently references humoral pathology, originally developed by Hippocrates. Hippocrates was a Greek physician and philosopher who lived from 460-366 BCE [2]. Hippocrates suggested that an individual’s health revolved around maintaining a balance of the four bodily fluids, also known as the humors. Galen built upon Hippocrates's humoral pathology, adding the claim that the humors were associated with the attributes of being either hot or cold and wet or dry [3]. Galen thought that an excess in these humors would influence the body into a temperament that was bad for the body. An excess in blood- hot and dry- lead to sanguine temperament, phlegm- wet and cold- to phlegmatic, black bile- cold and dry- melancholic, and yellow bile- hot and dry- to choleric. 

Throughout the Haven of Health, Cogan makes use of humoral pathology in Galenic medicine to advise his students on diet, daily living, and drink that will lead to a healthy life. Cogan’s utilization of ancient Greek and Roman physicians and philosophers displays the Renaissance academic mindset. During this time, an ad fontes method of sourcing was used. Ad fontes, a Latin phrase meaning “back to the sources,” encourages researchers to use and evaluate ancient materials and ideas from the Greek and Roman empires, such as Hippocrates and Galen’s teachings [4]. Cogan furthers the Renaissance ideology by relying on scientific methods to form his medical practices and ideas rather than the medieval medicinal foundation in supernatural causes to sickness and curatives [5].