When Healing Becomes Educating, Vol. 6 - Waldorf Research Institute

Observations like those of Jacoby Sr. and O. Mueller help us to see the
functions of organs such as the kidney and liver in a new way: as modified
cardiac functions. A system of vessels comparable to the pipes of a ram
thus exists in numerous variations in the vascular system, and the concept
of extracardial circulation appears in a new light: The wave of peripheral
tissue fluid, the lumen of which may be said to be infinitely large, is brought
to a halt and reversed in organ functions and in the heart beat, where the
lumina of the vessels are much smaller.
The arrangement of the myocardial fibers is like a “frozen image” of
falling, stopped and rising flow. Descending spirals (muscle fibers) moving
in opposite directions surround the two ventricles, with the point of reversal
slightly above the apex. The ascending fibres in the myocardium of the left
ventricle terminate in the papillary muscles which project into the lumen.
The arrangement of the muscle fibers is a physical and etheric image of the
circulation from periphery to cardiac apex, reversal of flow, and the blood
rising above the papillary muscles into aorta and lung. It also is an image of
the hydrodynamics of the ram (Fig. 2). 11
Fig. 2: Ascending and descending spirals in myocardium
Left: Schematic representation of arrangement of fibers in outer and middle muscle layers of
left ventricle, a) external fibers running obliquely, b) deeper layer of oblique external fibers,
c) ventral cross-over of subbasal loop fibers in middle layer, d) descending fibers in middle
layer, which rise again at e), above the apex (H. Leonhardt, 1988).
Right: Schematic representation of arrangement of fibers in inner layer of ventricular
myocardium, a) External spiral fibers of inner layer, branching to ventral papillary muscle,
b) deep fibers of inner layer radiating to dorsal papillary muscle, d) steeply ascending
interpapillary spirals of deep inner layer, e) fibers descending from left fibrous ring, with
fibrous roots going to papillary muscles at the turn (from Puff, 1960) (H. Leonhardt, 1988).
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