This Web Project has taught me a great deal about medicine through the different time periods leading up to Newton. The background knowledge of the time period I had increased through my studies of Hippocrates, the Plague, and Vesalius. This project has helped me accomplish several goals. For one, I appreciate the work of past doctors and scientists more. The courage and ingenuity these individuals had have given me greater understanding of the difficulties they had to go through in order to learn the principles and structures that we take for granted now.

Another thing I believe this web project accomplished was answer some questions about the foundation of medicine. I did not realize that Hippocrates did not necessarily write the Oath himself. I was amazed to find out that the volumes that are attributed to Hippocrates are actually a collection of writings that are associated with him. The Black Plague was interesting to research as well. I learned that the plague ravaged Europe in waves, circling the Continent rather than spreading in all directions. I did not know much about Vesalius before I researched information about him, so it was very interesting to learn about his studies of human anatomy.

I do not know how much other people have learned from my web project, but I certainly have seen parallels between the work that these ancient physicians did and the things doctors do in modern times. I have seen the establishment and incorporation of reason into medical practice from the time of Hippocrates. I have seen the theorizing of disease origins during the Middle Ages. I have seen the detailed investigation of human anatomy and the pursuit of understanding physiology in the time of Vesalius. I have also learned about the differences between past and present medical practices. Through this research, I have seen the gradual evolution of medicine from mysticism to rational “science.” I think it has been rewarding to learn about these changes, because they have shaped the way we learn medicine now.

I have had a lot of fun putting the web episodes together. Even though I enjoyed researching the topics, it was digesting the information and creating my interpretations that made this web project worthwhile to me. I had a good time thinking of creative ways to tell the story in each episode. Formatting the episodes was a challenge at first, but after I found out how to use tables in HTML, I thought it would be really neat to make my episodes look like a blog post, told in the style of a newspaper article. For those who want to know how to make the tables in the same fashion as my web episodes, feel free to look at my source code. As far as my choice in fonts and color schemes goes, I applied the knowledge I gained from taking Technical Writing last semester to make what I thought was a decent looking page.

Overall, I think I learned more from the content I published than the frills of compiling the information. Even though I enjoyed putting everything together more, I learned a great deal from reading different articles and books about the different web topics. This was a great experience, and I hope that everyone who read my project also enjoyed the experience.