Q. Do you mean to say that all the experimental subjects used for the high-altitude experiments were volunteers?
A. Yes.
Q. Now before these subjects entered the chamber did you prepare them for what they had to do and tell them the significance of the whole thing?
A. Yes, of course. First I explained the whole question to them in broad outline, so that they would know what it was about and what the purpose of the experiment was. In detail I told them specifically what they had to do in the experiments. There was the writing test during which they had to write numbers from 1,000 backwards; then the cardinal point was that after the altitude sickness during the experiments, as soon as they came to, they had to pull the rip cord. We had a handle in the chamber connected to a bell. This was to represent pulling the rip cord of the parachute. This had to be explained to them carefully, otherwise they wouldn’t have understood it and wouldn’t have reacted correctly.
Q. Now, before the experiments began, did you have an electrocardiogram of each separate subject?
A. Yes and again later on.
Q. Please explain that.
A. Rascher had first examined the people to see if they were suitable for the experiments, so there would be no heart defects or anything like that. Then in order to get an exact control, before the beginning of the experiments we took an electrocardiogram of all the subjects. In almost all the experiments the electrocardiograms were registered and at the end, when the experiments were finished, we took another electrocardiogram of all the subjects in order to have material because perhaps even if there was no visible injury, there might still be some effects which could only be determined by such tests.
Q. Now, how long did these experiments on rescue from high altitude last, approximately?
A. Well, they really began on about 10 or 11 March and they lasted until 19 or 20 May.