Q. And you found nothing in these records which indicate to you that these experimental groups suffered any severe pain; is that right?
A. You cannot speak of pain in the case of these experiments, you can speak simply of discomfort, unpleasantness, bad mood attacks, a general fatigue, but severe pain is not caused by hunger or thirst or drinking sea water.
Q. How much unpleasantness and discomfort would be caused; could you tell anything about that from these reports?
A. Regarding the subjective reaction of the subjects, there was nothing to be seen in the records.
Q. The best way to find out about that would be to call in one of the experimental subjects; wouldn't it, Doctor?
A. I believe so, yes.
Q. Did you observe any different symptoms from these records as between the various groups of experimental subjects?
A. Not that I know of; certainly not from the records containing the figures from the general report, that is.
Q. In other words, the ones that were fed sea-water and Berkatit were just as well off as the group that got Wolfatit; is that right?
A. No, that is a very serious mistake because the ones who received Wolfatit did not have any trouble at all, they got along fine.
Q. But the others did have a little trouble?
A. A lot of trouble, they were very thirsty, very severely thirsty.
Q. As an export, suppose you toll the Tribunal, if you can, what the symptoms would be each day in a twelve day experiment, using for one group sea water, for another group, Berkatit, for another group Wolfatit and for the last group no food and no water?
A. This situation could never arise, because I would never extend a sea water experiment for twelve days unless it was with Schaefer water. I would not let a healthy person go with hunger and thirst for twelve days. The maximum you could expect of a person is six days. From the twelfth day on there is already danger of death. I therefore cannot describe what the symptoms would be on the seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh or twelfth day.
I can say that there would be general dehydration and they would be very thirsty indeed and that they would not yet be dead on tho twelfth day and that I would never undertake to carry out such an experiment myself.
Q. You cannot give us then the clinical symptoms during the days from the seventh day on?
A. I ask you if you want that information to read descriptions of persons ship-wrecked.
Q. I want to know what would happen to a man if ho were fed seawater for twelve days; yes, that is exactly what I would, want to know.
A. Well you can see that from the descriptions of people who for twelve days or more were ship-wrecked.
Q. And what did they have to say about it?
A. I cannot tell you that from my recollection. My memory is no longer as good as 50 years ago.
Q. You cannot testify about that then?
A. No, I can only imagine what it might be.
Q. I am not interested in your imagination unless it is based on some scientific observations you made, you are an expert on sea-water.
A. But I am not an expert beyond the limit when things begin to be dangerous for the life.
Q. In other words, your expertness is based on the experiments you conducted yourself?
A. I know tho literature on tho subject, but I cannot so reproduce it here so as to be able to testify under oath regarding these matters, but on the basis of my own experiments I am in a position to say to what extent they are unpleasant or not until the sixth day.
Q. You have testified to something about the man who was at sea for seventeen days; is that right?
A. Yes, such reports are available, seventeen days, nineteen days and one group spent thirty seven days on the sea with very little water. Of this group two survived and the rest died. If you sant some literature on the subject, I can submit tho biographies to you but not from my recollection.
Q. Professor, I am interested in your knowledge on the matter. Now, lot us take the case of the man who was out seventeen days; are you familiar with it?
A. I read about it, but at my age one is likely to forget things. I believe I remember he could be revived by giving him water and that very few subsequent illnesses occurred. In cases where persons are ship-wrecked for so long, it does occur that there are cases of bronchitis or pneumonia and there are symptoms of dehydration in the mucuous membrane layers similar to those found in diptheria, but these are all extreme cases at which you wonder that the person survived at all.
Q. Do you know how much water this man had who was out for seventeen days had when he first got into the boat?
A. No, I do not know, but I do know that when he was given water, after he was saved, he improved rapidly.
Q. Well, you just have a very general and hazy recollection of that case, don't you, Doctor? You know nothing about the conditions under which he survived tho seventeen days, how much water ho had to begin with, whether ho had food, fruit juices, if any and how much salt water he drank; day by day you know nothing about tho details, do you?
A. No, I am not in a position to testify about fruit juices, food and water and what not from the literature I read some time ago.
Q. Professor, you are probably familiar with tho document, which I want to put to you. It is the record of the conference hold on 20 May 1944. This document is NO-177, Prosecution Exhibit No. 133.
Doctor, before we turn to that document, I would like to get your reaction to a statement made by a man who was in Dachau and who had an opportunity personally to learn something about the sea-water experiments. That is tho affidavit Tschofenig, Document No. 911, Prosecution Exhibit 139 on page 28, the English document book 5. Professor, Mr. Tschofenig, who was, as I say, in a position to know personally about these experiments, states that tho experimental subjects could not eat much food, that some of them had cramps and maniac attacks, that he know that experimental subjects had hurled themselves on the floor and sucked dirty water out of rags used to mop tho floor.
Now, are you willing to state as an expert that these statements concerning suffering and thirst are incorrect and unreliable?
A. I don't know these statements but I consider it quite out of tho question that the experimental subjects felt it necessary to drink water out of mops, because there were air raid buckets there and if they felt they needed a drink they could drink out of them. Now, insofar as tho cramps are concerned, I don't believe that either. None of my subjects had cramps.
Q. Did you say something about them having difficult eating food?
A. Yes, that is so, they lose their appetite because their mouths became so dry they all agreed that they became less and less interested in food from day to day.
Q. No cramps?
A. No.
Q. No mental disturbances?
A. No, I consider that out of tho question.
Q. What physical impairments of any sort; no impairments of the eyes?
A. Physical or psychological?
Q. Physical is tho question.
A. Weakness, stiffening of the muscles and certain uncertainty in movement, the hardening of the muscles and all these things I already spoke of.
Q. Now, you say there were fire buckets in the room where they were carrying out the experiments?
A. Not in the room but in front of the wash room.
Q. Was this in Dachau?
A. That is what I heard, yes.
Q. Who told you about that?
A. I believe I heard that from defense counsel.
Q. So, it is your expert judgment that it would have been quite unnecessary for the experimental subjects to suck water out of dirty mops; they could have gone out and used the water out of the fire buckets; isn't it?
A. No, those who cheated did not take as much trouble as that.
Q. In other words, if they wanted to withdraw from the experiments, they could do so and drink all the water that they wanted to; that is your expert judgment on this experiment, is it Doctor?
A. No, of course it was made more difficult than that for them, but people like that will of course find a way out somehow and the supervisors are generally speaking are at least 50% on the other side, so that one can never be quite sure there.
Q. People like what, Professor?
A. The assistants who were present there. I think some of them wore interrogated. Two young people I think were there, some helpers or some laboratory assistants.
Q. I think I understand you to say that people like that always found it possible to cheat or words to that effect; I want to know what you mean by the reference to "people like that." What were these experimental subjects like, Doctor, in your expert opinion?
A. That I don't know. I would have to read that in the reports. I would have to have it checked on the spot from people who were there. I am speaking generally. When you have 44 people whom you use in experiments, then there is a certain number of people there who supervise and then one isn't quite certain of one's results either. I am just saying that in order to illustrate that in this particular case it has happened and could have happened that experimental subjects actually obtained drinking water.
Q. Let's go to Document No. 177, Prosecution Exhibit 133, which you have before you. As I recall your testimony earlier, you said that you assumed that these experiments were carried out as planned. I put it to you, doctor, that this conference gives us pretty definitely what the plans were. You find the paragraph at the bottom of the first page where it reads:
"At this meeting Captain Dr. Becker-Freyseng reported on the clinical experiments conducted by Colonel Dr. von Sirany, and came to the final conclusion that he did not consider them as being unobjectionable and conclusive enough for a final decision. The Chief of the medical Service of the Luftwaffe" -- strike that, Luftwaffe is not in here -- "is convinced that if the Berka method is used damage to health has to be expected not later than six days after taking Berkatit, which damage will result in permanent injuries to health and - according to the opinion of Dr. Schaeffer - will finally result in death after not later than twelve days."
Professor, in your expert opinion is that a correct statement of what is likely to occur if Berkatit is used?
A. That most probably is a correct statement.
Q. In other words, if you use it six days, you can expect permanent injury?
A. Oh no, I haven't finished. It is correct to assume that after consuming Berkatit injuries may be expected after six days, but permanent injuries to the health of the subject I would not speak about after twelve days have passed, and even then I have my doubts.
If you carry out a sea water experiment or if you have been shipwrecked for twelve days, then I am convinced that the patient would recover without permanent injury. if you succeed in getting him over the difficult initial period of drying out.
Q. Well then, you don't think this is right as you testified earlier, you think it is wrong?
A. That is too strong an expression. After six days you may expect injury to the health, but I don't believe that they are permanent injuries.
Q. Then you wouldn't expect permanent injuries even after twelve days, I understood you to say?
A. I consider that it is possible that even after twelve days, provided the danger point has been passed, no permanent injuries will result.
Q. Well, Professor, of course there are a great number of things that are possible, but as an expert I would prefer you would testify with respect to probability rather than possibility. Now, is it probable that there would be permanent injury after twelve days?
A. Have him repeat that question, please?
(Question is repeated)
No, it is probable. I have said that if a person has lived through those twelve days and if you have succeeded in getting him past the first danger point then it is most probable that he will not suffer any permanent injury to his health.
Q. Is it probable that he will live to the twelfth day?
A. That depends on whether he has no water at his disposal, whether it has been raining, whether he has been able to collect melted snow, whether he has drunk a lot or little sea water, The possibility is very great for a real shipwrecked person to survive twelve days and in an experiment, if he hasn't been drinking more than 500 cubic centimeters of sea water for twelve days, he will probably still be alive and emerge healthy and without injury.
Q. Let's get this very clear, Professor. We are not talking about shipwrecked sailors now who have the benefit of rain periodically. We are talking about the experiments which were the subject of this conference. As I understand it, it was the opinion of Schroeder's office and Schaeffer that death would probably ensue after twelve days. You disagree with that, is that right? You think it is probable that one would survive for twelve days?
A. I consider it possible but as I also said previously during my testimony that beginning with the twelfth day danger to life exists indubitably.
Q. But probably he would live to the twelfth day, is that right?
A. I can't give you the probability factors of that. I said it is possible that he will survive.
Q. Professor, let's continue at the top of page 2 where it says, "External symptoms are to be expected, such as drainage, diarrhea, convulsions, hallucinations, and finally death." You disagree with that too. don't you?
A. That again depends. That isn't said with reference to a special arrangement for experiments but quite generally. It is generally the development of a shipwrecked case, or in this case on the other hand it says after six days injury to health and thereafter diarrhea. That, according to our experience, is improbable. Convulsions - well, we haven't observed any; hallucinations - that might happen on the tenth day and if a patient dies on the twelfth day then it is quite possible that days beforehand he has had hallucinations.
Q. But you don't agree that the man gets diarrhea? As I recall, you testified to the contrary, that taking sea water causes constipation, is that right?
A. Our experimental subjects, since they never drank all of the sea water in one dose, all got constipated due to the dehydration of the body.
Q. Well, let's continue toward the top of page 2 and see what experiments were planned, Professor, and get your expert judgment about them. The first series is one group of persons to be given sea water processed with Berka; one group to be given ordinary drinking water; persons without any drinking water at all; persons, given to drink according to the present method. Those experiments were to last six days, is that right?
A. Yes.
Q. In your opinion would those experiments give any discomfort?
A. No.
Q. And no injury?
A. No.
Q. Psychical disturbance?
A. That not either, certainly not during six days.
Q. Now, that planning, the second group of experiments, Professor, "persons nourished with sea water and Berkatit, and as diet also the emergency sea rations; duration of experiments: 12 days. Since in the opinion of the Chief of the Medical Service permanent injuries to health, that is, the death of the experimental subjects has to be expected, as experimental subjects such persons should be used as will be put at the disposal by the Reichsfuehrer SS."
Doctor, assuming that the twelve day experiment was carried out, do you still maintain that it is probable there would have been no death and that it is probable that there would have been no permanent injury?
A. Fortunately, such an experiment was refrained from, because that would have got pretty near the dividing line towards endangering life and fortunately the experiment was not extended beyond the sixth day.
DR. MARX: Mr. President, as defense counsel for the defendants Becker-Freyseng and Professor Schroeder I wish to object to the way in which this document is being made the subject of cross examination by the prosecution. First of all this record is being contested by both the defendants and the defense, the reason being that the affidavit of the man Christensen shows clearly that there is no question of there being an authentic record of the meeting which took place at that time, but only a few days later a man by the name of Schickler, who was neither qualified nor entitled to make it, prepared a record from his memory, and he was definitely not a medical man, he was a technician, and what is more he was a prejudiced author of this record, and what is more, one must consider that here we are not concerned with the planning of experiments which would make any claim towards real existence.
It is proved beyond doubt that only when Professor Eppinger and Heubner were there were these experiments planned and that these matters are false and if Professor Vollhardt is to define his attitude at all then we could only be concerned with a hypothesis. In other words, one might say that, assuming this record here does correspond with the truth, which on the other hand we deny, then it could be so, but not as if we were concerned here with a true record of the outcome of that conference, and that in fact no planning for an experiment was carried out at the time, and, therefore, I object to this type of cross examination and I maintain my objection to the record as such in its entirety.
THE PRESIDENT: The witness has testified as an expert witness called by the defense. He is now undergoing cross examination. The rules of cross examination are liberal and Prosecution is entitled to test his knowledge of these matters and had not exceeded the proper bounds so far. Counsel may proceed.
DR. MARX: Mr. president, may I say one more word. There is the additional point that the minutes precisely state under II that the Commission, and this is at the bottom of page 3 of the German test, the Commission for the planning for the conditions of the experiments to be carried out is composed as follows:
Professor Eppinger from Vienna, then a representative of the Hygiene Department, a representative of the Air Force, a representative of the German Air Ministry, and a representative of the OKM, the high command of the Navy. So, the commission who was to draft the plans for these experiments was only being made up--it hadn't met, but was only to be constituted during a further meeting and then draft plans for the experiments. Thus, in this most relevant point this record is false and therefore the assumption is justified that the record was not prepared on the 23 May but even later after the 26th of May. Christensen, you see, upon my questioning, answered me that it was even possible that it was after the 25th May that this record was prepared and it probably has been ante-dated. For that reason alone, when you read that particular passage, it is quite unnecessary to state that there were no details, that the commission was only being formed and then during a later meeting was to make the plans to be carried out. Consequently, I beg you to take this into consideration and to have further examination of this witness refused.
DR. STEINBAUER FOR BEIGLBOECK: I also object to the type of cross examination carried out by Prosecution, but my reasons are different- they are of a formal nature. It is not proper that an expert witness should be shown a document that a sentence should be torn from its context- without telling him what we are concerned with and without giving the witness ample opportunity to peruse the entire document-to peruse the entire document in his own time and then he would know what is going on.
In order to prove this I would like to point out how Prosecution quoted from Tschofenig's interrogation saying that Tschofenig had experienced all that but in the middle of the second page- the witness is saying "due to my position as responsible prisoner for the X-ray station of the camp hospital insight in the experiments." Which could have been only a superficial one. Thus, the assertion that this witness was informed in detail is contradictory to facts before this Tribunal.
THE PRESIDENT: When the witness is being cross examined in connection with any certain document the witness may see, examine, and read that document in full if he desires. Otherwise the cross examination may proceed. Objection is over-ruled.
BY MR. McHANEY: Witness, I am not asking you to argue whether theis experiment of 12 days as outlined here was carried out, but I understand you are an unbiased expert on sea-water problems, testifying in an un-biased manner, I am asking you to assume that this experiment was carried out and, as it states, it was to last 12 days, and the sole source of water was to be sea water and Berkatit, and I put the question to you as an expert-what in your judgment would have happened to the experimental subjects? Can you answer that?
A. Yes. Without a doubt the experimental person would have managed to get a hold of water some way or other, because even the most enthusiastic volunteer wouldn't continue that long.
Q. Doctor, let's assume that he had no recourse, no access to other water, he was put in a cell, where there was no other water. He had to drink sea water. He had to drink Berkatit. That is all he got and that went on for 12 days. Now, as an export, what probably would have happened to the experimental subject?
A. After 12 days he would have shrunk considerably and all sorts of symptoms would have become apparent. I can imagine there would have been hallucinations and physical weakness, hardening of the muscles, and so on. But, if a person were able to concentrate he had a chance to survive those 12 days.
Q. Is it probable that the experimental subjects would have died?
A. I wouldn't describe it as being a probability but as being a possibility.
Q. Would you describe it as being probable that the experimental subjects would have survived?
A. That I consider very possible.
Q. Well, is there any probability in here anywhere or just possibilities?
A. In biology you cannot figure out forecast. Much depends on the type of person you are concerned with, how is condition is how he can generally react. One can say generally that danger to life commences after 12 days, one can assume that after 12 days he is still alive
Q. And it is probable that if he survives, as you state is very possible, is it probable that he would have suffered any permanent damage?
A. No, that is improbable that he would suffer permanent injury.
Q. Professor, can one kill a person by making him drink sea water as his sole source of water supply?
A. Yes, of course you can kill anyone if you only give him sea water to drink permanently. No human being can stand up under that, he dries out.
Q. And, as an expert, what is your best estimate as to how long that would take?
A. As I have just said danger to life commences after 12 days. That is a general estimate.
Q. That is the best testimony you can give in response to that question?
He is given only sea water, that is his sole source of water. You can't say anything more definite than around the 12th day it becomes quite dangerous to his life?
A. Yes, I can say that on the 12th day there is danger to his life.
Q. Were you in court yesterday?
A. Yes.
Q. Prosecution would call to the Tribunal's attention rule No.9 B of the rules issued by this Tribunal, which requires that witnesses be excluded from court prior to their testimony. We call that to the Tribunal's attention for what ever weight they might wish to give it. We make no motions because that rule was violated in this instance.
DR. TIPP: Mr. President, this justified objection by Prosecution can be clarified easily. Mr. McHaney doesn't know this fact that we asked the Tribunal in writing to allow Professor Vollhardt as an expert witness to permit him as an exception to be in court during the examination of Becker-Freyseng, Schaefer, and Beiglboeck. This request by defense was granted in writing by this High Tribunal. Possibly that decision of the Tribunal has not come to Mr. McHaney's knowledge.
Mr. McHaney: I have no further questions.
BY JUDGE SEGRING:
Q. Doctor, can you state for the information of the Tribunal whether so far as you know there is any food value in the preparation Berkatit?
A. An actual nourishing value is not contained in Berkatit as far as I know about its composition. I believe that initially it was made of tomatoes and then later on other types of sugar were used, but I don't think this was of any actual nourishing value.
Q. If it should appear that there is some food value or nour ishment value in the preparation then would it not be true that over an extended period of time the experimental subject who was taking Berkatit would be placed in the same position as would an experimental subject who was given food but deprived of all forms of water?
A. If Berkatit even did have one to 2 calories then it wouldn't play any part at all since that would be without any inference upon the dangerous quality of sea water which is its dehydrating quality. I would never never dare to continue a sea water experiment with Berkatit longer than a sea water experiment without Berkatit. That is, to say, not beyond six days.
BY THE PRESIDENT:
Q. Professor, these subjects upon whom you conducted an experiment in your institute were very excellent subjects for such an experiment were they not?
A. They were characterized by the fact that they were medical men who understood the meaning and that I could rely on them. Physically, they certainly were no better-conditioned, according to the photographs at least, then those rather well nourished experimental subjects.
Q. I was not thinking so much of their physical condition, but they were men who were interested in this work, were they not?
A. Yes.
Q. The results of the experiment - each upon himself and upon each of his associates - would be interesting to each one, would it not? Is that not true?
A. I would assume so, yes.
Q. Each one was entirely controlling his own participation in the experiment, was he not?
A. Yes.
Q. If, at any time, any one of the subjects felt that the conditions which he was undergoing in the experiment were becoming too heavy for him, he would have been released from further participation upon his request, would he not?
A. No doubt he would have reported and he would have said "I want to step out. This is too bad for me."
Q. That's what I meant. He would have asked to be released and he would have been immediately released? Well, is it or is it not a fact that a human being will voluntarily undergo hunger, thirst, pain, discomfort, and stand it better when he knows that he is doing it under his own volition with a scientific objective, than a person of equal physical condition will stand such an experiment when, insofar as he is concerned, he has no personal interest whatsoever?
A. No doubt that is correct and I am perfectly convinced that Professor Eppinger tried everything he could in order to obtain such volunteers. He was most discomforted through the fact that these experiments were carried out in Dachau. He would much rather have seem them carried out in Vienna on his own scholars or students but, at that time, there weren't any students any more. They had all been called up, and medical officers were very scarce so that there was no question of obtaining volunteers. Hence, in this very tense and difficult time, no subjects could be found to carry out such a series of experiments as was planned here in a hospital or clinic or any kind. It would have been better, more practical and more sensible, by all means, if the experiments had been carried out at that time upon medical students, but, unfortunately, that was impossible.
Q. You perfaced your statement, Doctor, by saying that Dr. Eppinger had this sentiment. How do you know that?
A. Because, during the conference, it was mostly Prof. Eppinger who was in favor of these experiments being made and, since Professor Eppinger had earmarked his favorite pupil Beiglboeck, for the carrying out of these experiments, it is a matter of course that Eppinger would have liked nothing better than that these experiments had been carried out under his own control in Vienna.
Q. You are assuming that Eppinger would have felt as you would have felt under similar circumstances, is that correct?
A. I know that all those who were interested in these experiments were making efforts to find places where these experiments could be carried out in a military hospital on soldiers or convalescent patients or other persons, but, unfortunately, everything turned out to be impossible.
You can only imagine the situation if you know how every hospital bed and every doctor was being utilized in this time. That was the final period of the war.
Q. You prefaced this last statement by saying "I know". Now, how do you know? By any other method than assuming that these gentlemen would have felt as you felt?
A. No, I recollect that I have read that in one of the reports, that one had tried to carry out the experiments elsewhere and that one had come across locked doors everywhere. For instance, one had Brunswick in mind, I know that accidentally, the Air hospital at Brunswick, and that was impossible. Thus, all inquiries had negative answers.
Q. I gathered from your answer to one of my questions a short time ago....I would like to return to that subject .......that a person of intelligence will endure more discomfort, pain and suffering, pursuing a voluntary experiment which he knows he can terminate at any moment than a person, probably of less intelligence, would display upon undergoing an experiment which he could not stop at his own volition. Is that correct?
A. Well, there isn't any question that, for those persons in Dachau, the only bait was the good food before and afterwards and the cigarettes that they had been promised. That wasn't possible in the case of my doctors. They did it because they were interested and, of course, that would have been by far the most preferred solution if it had been possible.
Q. And, insofar as the subjects at Dachau, if any of them, at any time during the course of the experiments, believed that the pain or discomfort or whatever it might be called, which they were suffering would not be compensated by cigarettes or other promises which had been made to them, that they would be very anxious then to be released from prosecution of that experiment.
Is that true?
A. Certainly. That's why quite a number of experimental subjects secretly drank water, because the strict pursucance didn't please them too much.
Q. Well, unlike the experimental subjects in your institute, those subjects would not be particularly interested in the result, would they? They had no scientific interest in the result, did they?
A. No, no. None at all. None whatever.
THE PRESIDENT: Are there any further questions to the witness.
BY DR. TIPP (Defense counsel for the defendant Becker-Freyseng:)
Q. Professor, the statements made by the prosecutor during the cross-examination unfortunately necessitate certain clarifications.
First of all, might I ask you one thing? In your direct examination you have, of course, emphasized the purpose of these experiments. Now, would you finally say just once again what was to be achieved by means of these experiments carried out at Dachau?
A. The situation was the following: After Schaefer had developed the idea of his excellent drug, the question of sea water was solved. Unfortunately, Mr. Berka arrived with his taste corrector and, because of very superficial experiments carried out by Colonel Sirany, the Technical Department spoke in favor of this drug which, from the medical point of view was not suitable because the dehydrating effect of sea water was not being eliminated by it.
Thus, a conflict arose between medicine and technique, and the technicians had the greater force, they had to grant the funds and they said "The raw materials for Wofeatit were too difficult to obtain. It is easier for us to manufacture the Berka affair." Consequently, this meeting came about during which the two leading experts spoke in favor of carrying out these experiments although every one of them knew that Wofatit, of course, could not be beaten. But it might have been that Berkatit too had a certain advantage over ordinary sea water and, as I have said, Eppinger was thinking of the possibilities that the concentrating powers of the kidneys might somehow be increased. However, the experiments didn't give a definite supportive evidence of that, but they did have an important result - not only the obvious result, namely, that the Schaefer water was superior to anything else but, also, the observation that the kidney can, nevertheless, concentrate salt so astonishingly well up to the concentration of sea water that, in future, one could give the advice that in cases of sea distress, instead of being completely thirsty, one could rather, drink 500 cc of sea water and, in that manner, increase the salt contents of the blood but would not have to be afraid of dehydration quite so quickly.
Q. Well then, Professor, if I understood you correctly, it was the aim of the experiment to establish whether Berkatit, after all - probably in practical cases of sea distress - ought not to be introduced? Is that correct so far?
A. Yes, that is quite correct, since the aviator wouldn't be quite so burdened by it as by Wofatit.