1947-05-22, #2: Doctors' Trial (late morning)
THE MARSHAL: The Tribunal is again in session.
HERMANN BECKER-FREYSENG — Resumed
DIRECT EXAMINATION (Continued)
BY DR. TIPP:
THE PRESIDENT: The clerk will return this photostat to the counsel. Counsel may proceed.
Q: Dr. Becker, now we come to a few more points with which you are charged. You were accused orally with experiments in influenza. It was only mentioned. I have not been able to find any documents referring to influenza, therefore, I only ask you did you know of any experiments in the field of influenza at any time anywhere?
A: No.
Q: Witness, you are also charged with participation in experiments in cholera, typhoid, para-typhoid and similar things. The only document which the Prosecution has submitted on this subject —
MR. HARDY: May it please the Tribunal, to simplify the issue the Prosecution will at this time withdraw charges against Becker-Freyseng concerning yellow fever, smallpox, para-typhus A and B, cholera, and diphtheria, — not typhus.
THE PRESIDENT: The Secretary General will note for the record the withdrawal of those changes, and counsel for the Prosecution will file with the Secretary General and serve upon opposing counsel a written statement of the charges which are withdrawn.
DR. TIPP: May I ask, Mr. Hardy, do you also withdraw yellow fever?
MR. HARDY: Yellow fever, smallpox, para-typhus A & B, cholera, diphtheria.
DR. TIPP: Yellow fever is also withdrawn?
MR. HARDY: In other words, all the other charges to the defendant Becker-Freyseng, yellow fever, small pox, para-typhus A & B, cholera, diphtheria, and sulfanilamide which we withdrew before will be withdrawn by the Prosecution.
DR. TIPP: Mr. President, in view of this statement I have no further questions. The only point remaining for discussion is the charge of sea water, and this will be dealt with by Dr. Marx, the defendant counsel for Dr. Becker-Freyseng.
I should like to give a brief technical explanation. The witness Haagen is here. I have been only able to talk to him briefly. I can say that he will be called as a defense witness for Dr. Schroeder and Becker-Freyseng, after the examination of this defendant. I shall submit this in writing to the Secretary General.
THE PRESIDENT: Very well, counsel. Counsel for the defendant Becker-Freyseng, Dr. Marx, may proceed.
BY DR. MARX:
Q: With the permission of the Tribunal I shall now begin the examination of the defendant, Dr. Becker-Freyseng, on the question of seawater. Witness, we now come to the final charge against you. You are charged with special responsibility for and participation in the seawater experiments carried out in the concentration camp Dachau, the experiments to test two procedures for making sea water drinkable. Witness, you were actually involved in planning experiments as a Referent; will you please tell the Tribunal how these experiments came about?
A: The problem of combatting thirst in cases of distress at sea up until 1942 was not settled either in Germany or in any other country, at least not with much success. Just as in other countries, there was a small supply of water in the German emergency equipment, but it was inadequate in most cases. The office responsible for equipping airplanes with emergency equipment was that of the Technical Office of the Luftwaffe. When German planes were used in the Mediterranean area, and over the Atlantic, the cases of distress at sea increased and also the cases of severe thirst and complaints from the crews.
In my previous testimony, I have already said that one of my main duties as Assistant Referent in the Referat for Aviation Medicine was that I had to work on from between three hundred to four hundred reports. In the reports from the Luftwaffe doctors in the flying formations in 1941 and 1942 I found an increasing number of reports of cases of distress at sea from the Mediterranean area from units which flew over the Atlantic. When severe thirst had come about the danger for the fliers in these sub-tropical and sometimes tropical areas was that they were not exposed to the cold, like their comrades in the North Sea area and the area around England, but they were exposed for days at a time to the heat of the sun and consequently to thirst.
I had personal scientific connections with this field. From 1935 to 1938 I had worked on questions of water and salt myself, although not with this definite aim of combatting thirst.
Of course, I wondered how this problem could be solved. I discussed with the Referent Professor Anthony and at my suggestion, or rather our suggestion, in the spring, perhaps in April of 1942, Dr. Konrad Schaefer was given the assignment to see to it that the thirst problem was dealt with scientifically. For this purpose, he was sent to the Aviation Medical Research Institute in Berlin.
Q: Witness, do you know that Dr. Schaefer in October of 1942 at the Nurnberg conference "Sea and Winter Distress" made a lecture on combatting thirst in distress at sea?
A: Yes, I heard this lecture. Of course, it was simply a lecture based on his reading, because Dr. Schaefer had not performed any experiments himself at that time.
Q: Then, to your knowledge, up to the fall of 1942, Dr. Schaefer had not performed any experiments on human beings himself?
A: Neither on human beings or on animals, as far as I know. This lecture was simply a lecture based on his reading on the subject.
Q: Now, what happened after this meeting; how did the matter develop?
A: In the winter of 1942-43 and in 1943, Dr. Schaefer worked on this problem Intensively. First of all, he made physiological tests on how thirst was caused. It is remarkable that a thing which seems so simple and primitive to a layman, thirst, from the scientific and theoretical point of view was not settled at that time and is not completely settled even today. Dr. Schaefer performed many annual experiments and also self experiments on four or five of his technical assist ants, who volunteered for this purpose. I should like to point out that these technical assistants went without water and food completely for four days, at the same time being able to carry on their full laboratory work.
The second way that Dr. Schaefer took was a purely chemical test or development.
He tried to discover a sea-distress food as good as possible. Without going into detail, I shall state briefly that most foods which we eat are burned in the body and become carbonic acid and water. In normal food about 300 cc of water are created daily in the body. It is possible to compose the food in such a way as to change and prepare foods chemically in such a way that this amount of water in the body is even increased. That was one purpose of Schaefer's tests and on his suggestion two research assignments were issued to two research workers in Prague. That you cannot find these two men on the list, which has been discussed at length, is because this assignment was given in the fall of 1944 after this list was drawn up. Also Dr. Schaefer developed a method to make sea water drinkable. Sea water has about 3% salts, about 2.7% table salt and about 0.2% magnesium sulphate, also small amounts of other salts, which are not important.
The table salt is important especially because it is the salt which causes or can cause thirst, and the magnesium sulphate is important because it can cause diarrhea. This diarrhetic effect of magnesium sulphate has a certain significance in this trial. This is caused only after a certain amount has been take. For example, if sea water is taken, diarrhea is caused only if the individual dose, that is, the amount taken at one time, is at least 300 or 400 cc. In purely scientific collaboration with a research laboratory of the I.G. Farben Industry Dr. Schaefer worked out a procedure, and for the first time in the history of humanity it was possible that sea water could be made drinkable even under the conditions prevailing in a lifeboat. In the meantime I have become acquainted with a procedure developed by an American scientist, but I can still uphold this statement which I have just made because through my knowledge the procedure developed by Dr. Schaefer is the only one which at the same time removes the table salt and the magnesium sulphate. Dr. Schaefer had finished developing the procedure in about November 1943 and in the first days of December 1943 he demonstrated it in my presence to a small group of people, including the Medical Inspector, Professor Hippke, and Oberstingenieur [Chief Engineer] Christensen of the Technical Office, the man responsible for introducing such a piece of equipment into the emergency equipment.
Schaefer's procedure gained general recognition at the time and Oberstingenieur Christensen promised the Medical Inspector, Professor Hippke, that this procedure would be introduced. In December 1943 he issued a so-called development assignment to the I.G. Farben Industry in order to have the last technical details worked out more quickly and preparations made for large-scale production before the beginning of the summer of 1944, if possible. This settled the whole matter for me. As this trial shows, it was unfortunately not settled.
Q: Now, witness, how did it happen that the matter was taken up again?
A: In January, February, up to the middle of April, 1944 I had a leave to do some scientific work, to carry out some experimental work of my own, and I hardly had any contact during this time with Professor Anthony.
When on the 16th of April 1944 I reported back to the office and took up my work, I heard to my great astonishment that in the meantime in Vienna a second procedure had been developed to make sea water drinkable by an engineer named Berka, and that a former Oberstarzt [Colonel, Medical Corps.] in the Luftwaffe, Dr. Von Serany, had tested this method in experiments on soldiers of the Luftwaffe in a Luftwaffe hospital in Vienna. Professor Anthony had heard about this story and had Dr. Schaefer go to Vienna and work with this procedure and with Serany's experiments, but unfortunately he had simply told the Technical Office that there was a second procedure and had not taken any further interest in the matter. Since between the 15th of April and the 15th of May I had taken over the affairs of the Referat — Anthony was to leave on the 15th of May — I immediately suggested that the original records from Mr. Von Serany should be sent for. I saw these records about the end of April. I looked through these records myself and suggested to my department chief that they should be shown to Dr. Schaefer and his opinion on them asked for, and on the basis of Schaefer's opinion and my own opinion we came to the conclusion that the Berka method was to be rejected under all conditions; and so in the first days of May 1944 a very definite rejection was given to the Technical Office. I shall go into the reasons for our rejection later. On the basis of our rejection almost exactly three years ago, on the 19th or 20th of May 1944, the Technical Office called a conference on the subject, and my department chief ordered me to go to it, and also ordered that Dr. Schaefer was to participate in the discussion as an expert in the field.
Q: Witness, I now come to the first document on the subject. I show to you from Document Book 5, page 10 of the German, page 9 of the English, Document NO-184, Prosecution Exhibit 132. This is a letter from the Technical Office to the Reichsfuehrer SS, dated 15 May 1944. I ask you, witness, did you know that in the question of making sea water drinkable there had been close contact between the Technical Office of the Reich Air Ministry and the Reichsfuehrer SS from the end of 1943 at the latest?
A: No, I knew nothing about such a connection and, of course, I did not know this letter.
Q: Witness, do you have the letter before you?
A: Yes, I have it.
Q: If you look at the letterhead and the signature, can you tell us what office this letter comes from?
A: Yes, it comes from the Technical Office and the abbreviation "GL/ce 54" indicates it comes from the office responsible for the development of equipment for airplanes. That was the department of Oberstingenieur Christensen. On the copy I have here I cannot decipher the signature because there is no signature given, but some time ago I saw the photostat of this letter and I know the signature on it. It is that of Hermann, who was a Generalingenieur [General Engineer] and Christensen's superior.
Q: Now I come to the contents of the letter itself. Witness, the Technical Office writes in the first paragraph, and I quote:
With reference to the inter-office conference between Oberstingenieur Christensen and Hauptsturmfuehrer [Captain] Ing. Dohle regarding the matter it is announced that two processes have been worked out by the office to render sea water potable.
Does this statement not contradict what you have just said?
A: Yes, but the statement in this letter is definitely untrue. Neither the procedure of Dr. Schaefer nor that of Engineer Berka was worked out by the office, meaning the Technical Office, as it says here. Schaefer's process was worked out for the Medical Inspectorate and Berka worked first at the Technical College in Vienna without any assignment, and only when Anthony informed the Technical Office would the Technical Office have been turned over to Berka.
Q: Witness, the Technical Office now speaks of Schaefer's process and I quote — That is No. 1:
The IG method uses mainly sulfa nitrate. For this process quite a large plant needs to be set up and it requires about 200 tons of iron which costs about 250,000 Reichsmarks; the amount of the production needed by the Luftwaffe and Navy requires 2.5 or 3 tons of pure silver a month; besides the water which is rendered potable by this preparation has to be sucked through a filter in order to avoid absorption and precipitation of chemicals. These facts make the application of this process practically impossible.
In your opinion is this statement true, witness?
A: No, I can say the following. These 200 tons of iron might be a lot for a goldsmith or a housewife, but for the Luftwaffe, which had enormous losses of planes, 200 tons of iron were really not an insurmountable obstacle, not even in 1944. The 250 thousand Reichsmarks which setting up a plant for Schaefer's method would have cost are, of course, quite a lot of money for a private citizen, but if one considers that the training of one pilot until he is ready for the front, until he is ready to be used as a fighter pilot or a bomber pilot at the front, costs the state about 50 to 100 thousand marks — I may remark that this includes costs of accidents in training and many other expenses — if one contrasts this sum and considers that the first two or three fliers who are saved will reimburse the Luftwaffe for these 250 thousand Reichsmarks, then one can believe that this sum of money is no valid argument against the introduction of Schaefer's method. As for the 2.5 to 3 tons of pure silver which would allegedly be needed every month, this is a great exaggeration, as I think I can prove later. These 2.5 to 3 tons of pure silver were the amount of silver needed for the so-called primary equipment. In the course of future months there would be needed only for replacements the amount used in cases of distress at sea or by loss of planes. The Technical Office acts as if every flier would be forced down at sea once a month or that every plane would crash and be completely destroyed once a month. And new for the last reason, that is, the difficulty because a filter is needed in Schaefer's process. Even a non-chemist will be willing to believe that that is a very harmless matter, which can be easily settled and which is no reason against introducing such a method.
Q: Witness, the letter goes on to say, I quote:
2. The second process which was worked out is the so-called Berka method. According to this method the salts present in the sea water are not precipitated but are so treated that in drinking they are not disagreeable to the taste. They pass through the body without over-saturating it with salts and without causing undue thirst.
In my opinion this is a medical judgment on the Berka method. Was the Technical Office in a position to make such a medical judgment?
A: No, and for that reason this propaganda for Berkatit is that of a layman and is rather dumb. You indicated in your question that it was a medical statement, which the Technical Office was not competent to make, since it was composed purely of engineers. I said before that, at the beginning of May, 1944, the rejection of the Berka method, which had been very clearly formulated and explained, was sent to the Technical Office. Nevertheless, on the 15th of May the Technical Office wrote this letter to the Reichsfuehrer SS.
Q: In the next sentence, the Technical Office speaks of the practical side of the process, I quote:
No special plants are necessary for producing preparations needed for this process nor do the preparations themselves consist of scarce materials.
Will you please comment on this statement of the Technical Office, witness?
A: The only thing true in this sentence is that no special plants were necessary for producing this preparation. That was really an advantage to this method. Berkatit could be produced in any sugar factory. As for the statement that the preparations were not scarce materials, I may point out that the preparations needed were glucose. It is significant of the obstinacy of this Technical Office that 200 tons of iron they consider an unsurmountable obstacle, but glucose they say is not a scarce material. I don't think I'll be giving away any secrets if I say that, in 1944; glucose, which is made of corn primarily here, was a very scarce material and that glucose was used only for feeding sick persons and was available only in very limited quantities. Today, when all the papers are writing about calories, I can say that during our discussion with the Technical Office about the introduction of Berkatit, the Technical Office went to the Supply Office of the Luftwaffe and demanded the first two tons of glucose.
Fortunately, we learned about it and were able to stop it. One ton of glucose contains four million calories. If one takes the amount of two thousand calories per person per day, which is ideal under present day conditions, this one ton of glucose which the Technical Office wanted would be enough to feed a four person family, from the point of view of calories alone, of course, for five hundred days, and yet the Technical Office says that is not a scarce material.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, the witness has been testifying as to the various methods that were suggested. I do not see that it has probative value before the Tribunal, the fact that they selected one method instead of another, and that they were even false with both methods. One method was selected and that method was attempted to be carried out. Certainly, the relative merits of the two methods are not particularly important. If the higher authorities rejected the better method, I do not see that that would be relevant.
DR. MARX: Mr. President, the testimony of the witness has probative value inasmuch as he wants to prove what difficulties were raised by the Technical Office and what prejudices existed in the Technical. Office and how the matter developed, so that finally, from the point of view of the Medical Inspectorate, the experiments became necessary. For this reason I think that the testimony of the defendant is relevant, but in order to avoid delaying the trial unnecessarily, I shall ask only the most important questions and I ask you, witness, to be as brief as possible in answering my questions. You heard what the President just said.
THE PRESIDENT: Counsel, you may proceed.
DR. MARX: The letter of the Technical Office continues, I quote:
It can be presumed that this method, that is the Berka Method will be introduced in the Luftwaffe and the Navy within a short time.
Q: I ask you, could the Technical Office on its own initiative make such a decision?
A: Yes, the Technical Office could do that. The Technical Office alone was competent to decide whether a piece of equipment was to be introduced or not. I may add that in the organization of equipment customary in the German Luftwaffe, such as an item for making sea water drinkable was not food—the food Office would be competent to handle that. It was not medicine: The Chief of Medical Service would have had to decide about that. Rather it was a piece of equipment, and thus fell under the authority of the Technical Office. But I may point out briefly that this statement of the Technical Office on 15 May 1944 indicated clearly that at that time the Technical Office was firmly determined to introduce Berkatit, and this prejudice on the part of the Technical Office is extremely important for what I have to say about the discussions of the 19 and 20 May which followed.
Q: Witness, did the Technical Office demonstrate this prejudice which you speak of before the discussions of 19 and 20 May?
A: In regard to Berkatit, in part, yes, because before the 20th of May, for example, Christensen called up Dr. Schaefer or called him in and told him that he prohibited any comment against Berkatit. And from work in the Referat for Aviation Medicine I was used to similar prejudices in scientific attitudes from the same office, and in other fields, for example in the field night sight, which is of no interest here. However, I refer to it only because there is an affidavit on the subject.
DR. MARX: At this point I should like to refer to an affidavit of Dr. Heinrich Rose, who is not identical with Professor Gerhard Rose. Dr. Heinrich Rose, was also a doctor. He was a dye doctor, and he was called upon as a consultant from time to time.
I quote from the affidavit of Dr. Heinrich Rose. This is document 39, on pages 162 to 163, Document bock 3. This will be Exhibit 26. I quote only one paragraph, that is the one under "1)". The affidavit of the 27 December 1946. I quote:
The technical Department of the Reich Air Ministry proceeded independently also in questions of medical research. For instance, the Technical Department gave orders to test Xipoid retinale — a remedy which was supposed to improve night sight on the troops without previous consultation with other medical authorities.
I shall not read the rest of this document. Is shall come back to it later in my argument. I offer this affidavit as Exhibit 26.
Q: Witness, I ask you, when you went to the discussions of 19 and 20 of May you did not know that the Technical Office has already decided on Beckatit and had promised that it would be introduced soon?
A: No, I did not know that.
Q: The Prosecution has submitted a document which is no doubt the most important one in the whole prosecution document book in this connection; in any case the Prosecution showed this Document to Professor Schroeder in cross-examination and drew the conclusion that the sea-water experiments were criminal. I should therefore like to discuss this document with you in detail. It is in Document Book 3, page 12, in the German Book, page 11 of the English. This is Document No 177, Exhibit 132; do you have the photostat?
A: Yes, I have it.
Q: Witness, how did the two discussions of the 19 and 20 of May come about; did you suggest them? Did you make the preparations for them? Did the Chief of the Medical Services of the Luftwaffe call them, or who?
A: These discussions were called by the Technical Office, and at both discussions the person who called them presided at them, that was Oberstingenieur Christensen, the head of this department GL/ce 5. My department chief, as I said, sent me and Dr. Konrad Schaefer to these two discussions, and I may add that he did this because according to the information which we received, I think it was a telephone call to my department chief, we expected a small discussion attended solely by Referents, and not a discussion, on the scale on which it actually took place.
Q: Witness, will you first comment generally on this report?
A: I should merely like to refer very briefly to what I said. Above all I should like to go back to Instrument No. 184, Exhibit 132, according to which, on the 13 May 1944, the Technical Office was already determined to introduce Berkatit. We, that is the office of the chief of Medical Service of the Luftwaffe, were asked to attend two discussions on the 19 and 20, and went to these discussions convinced that it would be a purely technical discussion of this point question. Now, please look at the letterhead and the heading of this document, which on the 16th of December 1946 was submitted by the Prosecution page 525 of the German record; what you have to say about that.
A: The heading, and if I may mention it right now, the signature of this letter shows that it came from the Technical Office, that is the Office of Oberstingenieur Christensen, and was signed by him personally. Above the document it says "Minutes". If the Prosecution thinks that it is a record transcript I must say that I do not know the exact definition of these terms in International Law. I merely know now a record came about in the Aviation Ministry, since I belonged to this office for almost five years.
At a meeting a person was appointed who either took down the entire wording of the meeting in shorthand or took down the main points of the meeting. At the end of the meeting this document was shown to those present. They had an opportunity to read it, to approve it and to sign it. Then it was signed by the recorder and in this way such a document obtained the character of what we call a "Protokoll" [minutes], or if no recorder was appointed then at the end of the meeting a brief decision was drawn up in a few pregnant sentences which were dictated to a secretary and it was also signed by all participants at the meeting. There was a third possibility in very long discussions; the office which called the meeting, the representative of which was in charge of the meeting, drew up a report of the meeting, a report of the discussion rather, the draft of which was sent to the various agencies or persons who had participated with the request for signature, then one had an opportunity to read it through calmly. The persons justified to do so signed it. It was sent back to the office where it had come from, and then above such document it said, "In agreement with such and such agencies the following report is issued," according to my rather thorough knowledge of the procedure of the Reich Aviation Ministry those were the three possibilities of how a binding record was drawn up.
This Document indicates that there was no person appointed or named here who kept the record and that the participants did not sign this document. It is not a shorthand record and it does not say that it was issued in agreement with the agencies concerned and finally about the entire document, there is the word "Niederschrift" [transcript] and not "Protokoll", which means that the person who drew it up did not think it was a binding record. Therefore, I want to say that the person who drew up this Document, presumably the Referent of Christensen, and Christensen himself, who signed it, apparently are just putting down their impression of the meeting and what they thought should be passed on to other offices.
Q: Now the Document lists the people who were present. I do not want to read this part of the document, but I want to ask you from what point of view had these people been chosen?
A: I need not read all the names, but it is noteworthy that there were nine people there and that with one exception, all people except Dr. Schaefer and myself were Majors or Colonels and as I shall explain later that they were all people who did not understand medical problems and were therefore all the more in favor of the introduction of Berkatit.
Q: Now, did you wonder why so many officers were called to this discussion?
A: Yes, especially on the 20th I noticed what was going on very quickly. It was a typically staged scene, at which every one except Dr. Schaefer and myself knew his role very well by heart. They were to out-vote us to see that Berkatit should by introduced.
Q: Before I go on with the document, witness, I should like to ask: was the discussion on a scientific basis or were there any debates or quarrels?
A: I must say that at this discussion I heard one of the participants, the chief of the Travemuende Government Testing Station, a Major Jeworek, attack me personally. He said I was against Berkatit only because I was financially interested in the other method.
I stood up and wanted to leave. Unfortunately, I did not and I let Christensen and Jeworek's apologies induce me to stay.
Q: Now, witness, I shall go on with the document. I do not intend to read the next paragraph entirely. The first paragraph reproduces part of the discussion because Serany's experiments were not considered adequate, according to you. Then the document continues:
The Chief of the Medical Service is convinced that, if the Berka method is used, damage to health has to be expected not later than 6 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. External symptoms are to be expected such as drainage, diarrhea, convulsions, hallucinations and finally death.
Will you please comment on this passage; first a preliminary question. On 16 December 1946, page 526 in the German record, page 480 of the English transcript, the Prosecution said that the defendants Schaefer and Schroeder expressed the opinion that the experiments would cause injuries to the health of the experimental subjects. Before this meeting, did Professor Schroeder know about the plan for these experiments?
A: No, he was informed only after the discussion. I heard this statement of the Prosecution too. I think the names were confused: it should have been "Becker-Freyseng and Schaefer," or it may be that since it says Chief of the Medical Service, etc., that might have confused him. The Prosecution thought that it was the chief of the medical service, Dr. Schroeder, personally. In German military terminology it was customary to speak of the office, to say Chief of the Medical Service and Chief of the Intelligence Service, etc., meaning the office not the person in charge himself.
Q: Witness, will you say whether you actually made the statement in this document and held the point of view reproduced here?
A: It is true that on May 19th I made a brief speech saying roughly what we had said three weeks before to the Technical Officer in writing.
I said more or less that Dr. von Serany's experiments in Vienna did not seem valid to us because they contained a number of mistakes, but I would like to go into a statement contained in Schroeder's affidavit, that I said Serany's experiments were not strict enough. In my opinion, Serany's experiments were stricter and more dangerous than those which were later carried out under our responsibility. In Serany's experiments, every subject could drink as much as he wanted. This caused diarrhea, which made the thirst much worse and this diarrhea was not included in Serany's records of the experiments.
In my speech, I said when speaking on some definite experiments subject of Serany's that if this experimental subject, who drank seawater for four days, had gone on in the next few days to drink as much seawater, he would have lost so much water because of diarrhea that after about six days there would have been serious consequences. I am unfortunately forced to make a very brief physiological remark on this subject in order to explain what will follow. The human body consists to a very great percentage of water. The body of a new born child is 90% water, this water gradually lessens in a normal adult to about 60% water. This water is in part in the body tissues and is kept constant as a permanent supply. In addition to this supply of body water, we also have the so-called transport water, which we take in daily with our food and which we eliminate daily. This elimination is in part by respiration, in part through the skin, but the majority is through the kidneys. In our food, we ingest daily a quantity of salt which must be eliminated, also in metabolism a number of products are created which must be eliminated through the kidneys. For this reason the kidneys need a certain a mount of water. They need water because they are able to eliminate urine only up to a certain concentration of salt. If I now give the body either too much salt or too little water, then the normal transport will be insufficient for the kidneys and they will be forced to use the water supply of the body itself.
Now, if the water in the body tissues has been reduced to a certain limit, then we feel thirst.
At least, that is one reason for thirst. A loss of body water up to about 10% can be sustained without any danger. At 10% disruptive symptoms begin, the danger increases up to 20%, and if the loss of water of the body reaches about 20% then there is a certain danger of death.
I should like to point out one thing in connection with the experiments under discussion here. I have already said in Serany's experiments diarrhea occurred because Serany let his experiment subjects drink unlimited quantities of seawater of which the unpleasant taste had been covered by Berkatit.
It is generally known that in diarrhea large quantities of liquid are lost. That was our preliminary argument against Berkatit.
It might seem that the Prosecution is right in saying that I called the Berkatit experiments very dangerous, but that is not the case I said that the use of Birkatit in practice in distress at sea was very dangerous for the following reasons. If one looks at the reports of cases of distress at sea, and there are some very good English descriptions, one observes generally that shipwrecked persons first try to go without drinking at all for one or two days. During this time, of course, they lose water and they become more and more thirsty. Finally they cannot stand the thirst and under these conditions they drink what they have in unlimited quantities, that is, seawater. In this condition, seawater can have very dangerous consequences. Cases have been described where after only a few hours a very serious condition was caused, and even sometimes with fatal consequences.
THE PRESIDENT: Witness, at this time you will have to suspend the discussion until after recess.
(A recess was taken until 1330 hours.)