Feeling the elephant of cardiovascular cell therapy.

There is an ancient and well-known Asian folk-tale that, in a version by the poet Rumi in Tales from the Masnavi, tells of four men who are asked to feel an elephant in a dark room and describe what they are sensing. Each of them touches just one part of the elephant, so they all reach different conclusions and think that they are in the presence of either a water-spout, a fan, a pillar, or a throne, depending on whether they are touching the trunk, ear, leg, or back of the elephant.1