Expedition leader Eric Shipton invited Pugh, now on the High Altitude Committee of the Medical Research Council, to accompany the British 1952 Cho Oyo expedition to perform research on oxygen equipment that would be useful on the following year's expedition to Mount Everest. Pugh realised that the best way to do this was to study climbers in the field at altitude, and he analysed rates of breathing, and food and fluid intake. His report on his findings was, according to George Band, a climber on the 1953 Mount Everest expedition, of fundamental value to that expedition. These included the need to drink considerably more than the usual three or four pints of liquid per day; on Mount Everest. Hunt reports that Pugh's advice was that they drink six or seven pints of fluid a day. In June 1952, Pugh reported to the Joint Himalayan Committee that the failure of the Swiss on Mount Everest in the spring of that year suggested that the British, who he deemed to be less fit and less experienced mountaineers, therefore needed to be supplied with only the best oxygen equipment ... to put up a better performance than the Swiss.