The research on putrefaction and fermentation is an example of his early research and represents a topic to which he devoted little attention in his later career.
Showing that some life-like processes such as putrefaction did not depend upon organisms would not support the generalization that no living processes essentially depend upon "irreducible" organismic processes.
Helmholtz says, rather, that putrefaction can subsist (bestehen) independently of life processes, but is altered in its appearance or form by such processes.
On the contrary : the putrefaction of deeds asserted over grace its own remorseless alchemy.
The putrefaction occurred in these cases in the enclosed substance almost as quickly as in one not sealed-off.
Further, one can introduce putrefaction by allowing a material sample to come into contact with putrefying fluids or vapors.
Further, his own presentation suggests he saw clearly that his results did not show definitively the fundamental cause of putrefaction itself.
He showed that fermentation does indeed seem to require organisms, yeast cells, and that putrefaction is very closely tied with the dynamics of such processes.
