The medical treatises of our forefathers were very numerous. Such books as Potter’s “Booke of Phisicke and Chirurgery,” or Cogan’s “Haven of Health,” may advantageously be consulted. The copy of the first of these that lies open before us as we write is dated “the yeare of our Lorde God, 1610,” and like almost all these old books is more or less of a compilation, full of divers interesting matters “necessary to be knowne and collected out of sundry olde written bookes.” Cogan is very frank on this point. He says, “Yet one thing I desire of all them that shall reade this booke; if they finde whole sentences taken out of Master Eliot his Castle of Heath, or out of Schola Salerni, or any other author whatsoever, that they will not condemne me of vaine glorie, as if I meant to set forth for mine owne workes that which other men have devised; for I confess that I have taken verbatim out of other wher it served for my purpose, but I have so interlaced it with mine owne, that (as I think) it may be the better perceived, and therefore seeing all my travaile tendeth to common commodity I trust every man will interpret all to the best.” His statement that his ingenious interweaving of other men’s work with his own makes the plagiarism and appropriation the more readily detected, is somewhat difficult to follow. Cogan did, however, plagiarism notwithstanding, take up a somewhat special ground that supplied the _raison d’être_ of his book, since he tells us that “it was chiefly gathered for the comfort of students, and consequently of all those that have a care for their health.” There are repeated references to the Oxford scholars: thus, under the head of quinces he gives a receipt for marmalade, “because the making of marmalade is a pretty conceit, and may perhaps delight some painefull student that will be his own Apothecarie.” Elsewhere we are told of “Cinamon-water” that “it hath innumerable vertues, wherefore I reckon it a great treasure for a student to have by him in his closet, to take now and then a spoonfull.” One gets some interesting side-light thrown on the University life of that day—Cogan’s book we may mention was published in 1636,—as for instance when we are told that “when foure houres bee past after breakefast a man may safely take his dinner, and the most convenient time for dinner is aboute eleaven of the clocke before noone. At Oxford in my time they used commonly at dinner boyled beefe[12] with pottage, bread, and beere and no more. The quantitie of beefe was in value one halfepenny for one man, and sometimes if hunger constrained they would double their commons.” Judging by the “battels” we have had the felicity of paying we may take it that this tariff has undergone considerable alteration since 1636.