OP fails to link the patent, which is at
https://patents.google.com/patent/US748284A/en https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/8f/2f/9b/bc599b6...(The patent is only 2 pages, and the 1pg text description doesn't address the question of anaerobic bacterial decay or the removal of water to solve decay that way, but it also only claims 'indefinite' preservation, so it's not necessarily claiming perpetual preservation. It could just be intended for a few months or years, and who knows how well it'd work?)
> All these methods of sealing the body into airtight contraptions ignores the fact that decomposition comes from within. When the heart stops, the autolysis, or self-digestion, of the flesh begins, through its enzymes consuming cell membranes. Trapping a body in with its own bacteria means it is producing gas that has nowhere to go.
One thing worth noting here is that this was the era of germ theory and vitamin-ization and initial success in blood/organ transplants (eg. https://www.amazon.com/Immortalists-Charles-Lindbergh-Alexis... ). There had been such huge gains in health that some of the projections and assumptions are hard to recognize (and are part of why science fiction from before the 1950s can be so strange to read). For example, given how pervasive germs turned out to be, and how deadly, but also how beneficial things like vaccination or pasteurization were, there was something of a vogue for imagining a future germ-free world: https://gwern.net/doc/genetics/microbiome/germ-free/2012-kir... This would help lead to greatly reduced sickness and mortality, and help extend lifespans to centuries. (After all, the contemporary fad of 'microbiome'-everything aside, mammals like mice or humans get along pretty well without any microbes, as we now know from the later germ-free animal research and bubble boys.)
You might ask how they imagined this working in practice, as sterilizing the entire world seems infeasible? Well, one idea was... Per
(The patent is only 2 pages, and the 1pg text description doesn't address the question of anaerobic bacterial decay or the removal of water to solve decay that way, but it also only claims 'indefinite' preservation, so it's not necessarily claiming perpetual preservation. It could just be intended for a few months or years, and who knows how well it'd work?)
> All these methods of sealing the body into airtight contraptions ignores the fact that decomposition comes from within. When the heart stops, the autolysis, or self-digestion, of the flesh begins, through its enzymes consuming cell membranes. Trapping a body in with its own bacteria means it is producing gas that has nowhere to go.
One thing worth noting here is that this was the era of germ theory and vitamin-ization and initial success in blood/organ transplants (eg. https://www.amazon.com/Immortalists-Charles-Lindbergh-Alexis... ). There had been such huge gains in health that some of the projections and assumptions are hard to recognize (and are part of why science fiction from before the 1950s can be so strange to read). For example, given how pervasive germs turned out to be, and how deadly, but also how beneficial things like vaccination or pasteurization were, there was something of a vogue for imagining a future germ-free world: https://gwern.net/doc/genetics/microbiome/germ-free/2012-kir... This would help lead to greatly reduced sickness and mortality, and help extend lifespans to centuries. (After all, the contemporary fad of 'microbiome'-everything aside, mammals like mice or humans get along pretty well without any microbes, as we now know from the later germ-free animal research and bubble boys.)
You might ask how they imagined this working in practice, as sterilizing the entire world seems infeasible? Well, one idea was... Per