This chapter outlines a medical context for the change in perceptions and readings of the sea as representative of chaos or evil up to the early Renaissance period due to the reception of more positive views of the ocean derived from the reception of writings of the Hippocratic corpus from the sixteenth century throughout Europe. Details are given of key works that focus on the action of salt, wind, and sea-sickness in alleviating mental-health issues gathered under the early rubric of melancholia. A heritage of “gestation” sea therapy is underlined as part of the reception of this ancient medical knowledge.