Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/611/en

The Threshold from the Outer World to the Inner World

The threshold between the outer world of the digestive tract — relocated into the animal body — and the efficacious inner world of the animal's own being is formed by the mucous membrane walls of the rumen, the glandular stomach, the small intestine, and, fading out, of the colon and rectum. These boundary membranes are organs that, in comparison with the external bodily skin, display an inverted structure: the powerfully developed mucous membranes are turned outward, toward the stream of feed; they are in the highest degree metabolically active with respect to the breakdown of feed and to the absorption of substances stripped of their foreignness. The side of the intestinal wall turned toward the body's interior — the serosa — is innervated. It belongs to the peritoneum, which lines the abdominal cavity rather like an "inner sky" and thereby represents the sense-nerve or perceptive pole of the intestinal walls. Between the two, forming the middle, a circular muscle layer articulates itself, which rhythmically provides, among other things, for the peristaltic movements. It is the soul-nature of the cow itself that is active in the three members of the digestive membranes — simultaneously perceiving the process and letting it sound together into the wholeness of the bodily functions.