{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T00:43:59Z","timestamp":1777855439622,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2010,2,1]],"date-time":"2010-02-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1264982400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["J Med Biogr"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2010,2]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>Edgar Pask worked before, during and after World War II with the anaesthetist Robert Macintosh. Both were ranking officers and engaged in work with the Royal Air Force Physiological Laboratories at Farnborough, then in the charge of Dr Bryan Matthews. Pask submitted as a Doctorate Thesis a compilation of much of the experimental work in which he was the main subject, most of the data being acquired while he was unconscious. Experiments in which the Farnborough Team were engaged form a central core to the Thesis and relate to the development of life jackets. The information is well known and has been widely publicized, along with most of the biography of Pask. However, some extreme physiological experiments, again with Pask as the test subject and which probably were not conducted at Farnborough, are less well known but in their own way even more extraordinary. The theme in common is Pask's ideas to use the anaesthetized state and the properties of anaesthetic agents as surrogates to the extreme situations Royal Air Force pilots were subject to in modern warfare. There is no purpose to detract from Pask's ideas and selfless heroism by digressions into parallel processes conducted by the opposing Oberkommando der Luftwaffe (OKL) research establishments, but it is evident these were known and had shocked the Farnborough Team (including Pask) before revelation at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1258\/jmb.2009.009071","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2010,3,5]],"date-time":"2010-03-05T14:10:07Z","timestamp":1267798207000},"page":"44-48","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The big ideas of Edgar Alexander Pask (1912\u201366)"],"prefix":"10.1258","volume":"18","author":[{"given":"I D","family":"Conacher","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2010,3,5]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C1","unstructured":"ClarkR. In: The Life and Work of JBS Haldane. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 1968:61"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C2","first-page":"131","volume":"39","author":"Armstrong Davison MH","year":"1966","journal-title":"Annals Royal College of Surgeons"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C3","volume-title":"Cage Birds","author":"Hervey HE","year":"1940"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C4","first-page":"11","volume-title":"The Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics, Oxford 1937\u20131962","author":"Bryce-Smith R","year":"1963"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C5","unstructured":"SykesMK. Professor Sir Robert Macintosh (Obituary).\n                      The Independent\n                      , 12 September 1989"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1037\/14025-000"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C7","unstructured":"BertP. Barometric Pressure: Researches in Experimental Physiology (1877). Translated 1st English ed. College Book Co: Columbus, OH, 1943 (*For the record, IDC has RR Macintosh's personal copy)"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C8","unstructured":"PaskEA.\n                      Applications of Anaesthetic Techniques in Physiological Research\n                      . MD thesis, University of Cambridge, 1947"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C9","unstructured":"GibsonTM, HarrisonMH. In: Into Thin Air (A History of Aviation Medicine in the RAF). London: Robert Hale, 1984:64"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C10","unstructured":"The War Years (op. cit. ref. 4): pp. 11\u201315"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C11","unstructured":"Pask EA (op. cit. ref. 8): pp. 7\u20138"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C12","author":"Macintosh RR","journal-title":"Medical Times"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C13","first-page":"21","volume-title":"Aviation Medicine","author":"Jokl E","year":"1942"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C14","unstructured":"Clark R (op. cit. ref. 1): pp. 253\u20135"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C15","unstructured":"Pask EA (op. cit. ref. 8): p. 20"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C16","unstructured":"Ibid.: pp. 26\u20137"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C17","unstructured":"Ibid.: pp. 32\u201349"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C18","unstructured":"Gibson TM, Harrison MH (op. cit. ref. 9): pp. 216\u20137"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C19","unstructured":"HarrisonMH, GibsonTM.\n                      British Aviation Medicine during the Second World War\n                      . 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In Highlife: A History of High Altitude Physiology and Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998:427"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C42","unstructured":"GibsonTM, HarrisonMH (op. cit. ref. 9): p. 82"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C43","unstructured":"BurnN. Personal communication"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C44","first-page":"47","volume":"11","author":"Welsh B","year":"1996","journal-title":"Today's Anaesthetist"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C45","unstructured":"HarrisonMH, GibsonTM (op. cit. ref. 19): pp. 47\u20138"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C46","unstructured":"Ibid.: p. 45"},{"key":"bibr-JMB-09-71C47","unstructured":"EneverG. The \u2018Sierra Sam\u2019 Story. 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