Most people are familiar with the organs in their bodies: the heart, lungs, liver, stomach, etc. It is common practice to learn about these organs in elementary school, allowing students to become aware of how their bodies are put together. However, something people did not know about, until recently, is that they also have an organ called the Mesentery. This new organ is the latest addition to the classification of body parts and will surely be taught to the new generation of young students.

Scientists have recently named the new organ and have introduced it to the public. This “new organ” is not actually new to your body. It has always been there; doctors just hadn’t realized its importance and identification until now.

So, what is it? The Mesentery is an organ that connects the intestines to the abdomen. It serves the function of carding lymphatic fluids and blood from the intestines to the rest of the body. It also serves a significant structural importance because it connects the intestines to the body wall without having the intestines directly come into contact with the wall.

Understanding the nature of the Mesentery can be be beneficial to the medical community because it can allow doctors to better understand how to deal with digestive problems. It can also influence treatment for cardiovascular disease or colorectal cancer. Raj Vaza (12) said he thinks “learning about this new organ will definitely help doctors more correctly identify the source of problems.” Surely, the more thorough a doctor’s understanding of the body is, the more likely they are to correctly diagnose a patient.

With the addition of the Mesentery, there are now 79 total organs in the human body. That might seem a big number, but it is important to note that each organ plays a vital role in the regulation of body processes. It is common to wonder, “How could scientists miss such a prominent organ?” The reason why scientists had never identified this organ is because they though the Mesentery was simply fragments of digestive tissue. However, it is now apparent that the Mesentery is in fact it’s own, continuous organ.

What is truly amazing about this new finding is the fact that people today are constantly witnessing rapid advances in the field of science and medicine. Things like the discovery of the Mesentery will surely be recorded in history through future scientific textbooks. Therefore, it is important to celebrate these small discoveries because they represent innovation in its purest form.