Potentials For Life

10 Pages 2502 Words

Between the years 1537 and 1543, Andreas Vesalius dissected several human cadavers while a professor of anatomy at Padua. With such research he was able to expose for the first time in history the correct anatomy of the human body. There eventually developed a full and exact knowledge of anatomy, which was the first requirement for another medical development, surgery. Although it was a medical breakthrough, Vesalius’ discovery was not granted public support, nor was it supported by organized religion. Science found its way inside the human body, yet it struggled to find its way out of moral dilemmas. Many believed that dissection was an insult to the human body (Haggard 155). In fact, dissection faced much of the public skepticism that stem cell research does today. While in the midst of a potentially revolutionizing era in medical science, support was and still is superceded by fear.

Medical science has come a long way since the time of Vesalius’ sixteenth century. Since then, scientists and doctors have revealed the machine that is the human body, and geneticists have uncovered the genes that contain our biological makeup. Just this year scientists have decoded the human genome, the complex code of life. But given our medical knowledge we aren’t yet able to conquer detrimental diseases like cancer, Parkinsons, and Alzheimers. These diseases deprive us not only of life but of our dignity as well. Many diseases result from the disruption of cellular functioning or the destruction of tissues (NIH website). While we’ve known about the destruction of tissues and cells for a long time, we’ve never, until now, known of a solution.

Stem cells, we now know, offer new hope to conquering many of these diseases. In particular, embryonic stem cells offer us the best promise in curing disease and in teaching us more about the early stages of human development. These little cells may well be our biggest weapon in fighting disease....