A Professor of Surgery at the University of Limerick’s Graduate Entry Medical School, J Calvin Coffey, has found that the mesentery is one continuous structure, instead of a fragmented structure made up of multiple sections, reports the University of Limerick.
Professor Coffey outlined his reasons for categorizing the mesentery as an organ in the distinguished medical journal, Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology in November 2016.
“In the paper, which has been peer reviewed and assessed, we are now saying we have an organ in the body which hasn’t been acknowledged as such to date,” Professor Coffey stated.
The reclassification claim is being made based on an extensive microscopic examination that shows the mesentery is one complete structure. “When we approach it like every other organ…we can categorize abdominal disease in terms of this organ,” Coffey said.
The mesentery was long thought to be made up of fragmented pieces of tissue and was even described by Leonardo da Vinci, reports Inverse. The description that made the mesentery a rather unimportant jumble of nothing more than connective tissue for hundreds of years has now been changed, making the new organ number 79 in the list of human organs found in the body.
Professor Coffey says the reclassification will open the door to a better understanding of the organ’s function, as well as further scientific study. This could lead to less invasive surgeries and fewer complications.
And school children will be able to claim a new illness for not wanting to go to school – Saying they have a mesentery ache. But seriously, even Gray’s Anatomy, the bible used by almost all pre-med students at some time in their studies, has been updated to include the new organ as a separate entity.
