Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/605/en

Together with the reticulum and the psalterium, it fills the entire left half of the abdominal cavity. In the great fermentation space of the rumen, intensive fermentation processes take place within the fodder masses, which are kept in constant motion. However chaotically these proceed, they stand under the strict direction of the astral body of the bovine. In these rhythmically unfolding churning processes, bacteria and ciliate organisms — belonging to the protozoa — break down the more readily digestible components of the fodder pulp; some of these, above all energy-rich fatty acids, pass here already — in their passage through the metabolically active rumen mucosa — into the bloodstream. As soon as the rumen is full — visible from outside in the bulging of the left flank — satiation thus sets in, and as a rule the cow, or the whole herd, lies down and after some time begins to ruminate. The rumen contents sort themselves into three layers: a lower liquid one, floating above it a middle layer of still coarser material, and an upper layer of fermentation gases. From the middle layer of the rumen and from material pressed out of the psalterium, the bovine now swallows portion after portion back up into the mouth, releasing the fermentation gases by the same route. These travel with the exhalation stream as far as the frontal sinuses — indeed as far as the hollow of the horn peg. Here a wide tableau of perception and qualitative analysis opens up for the bovine, in relation to what has so far revealed itself to it, in terms of substance and forces, in the course of the digestive process.