A portrait photograph of Charles Ward Crampton. Charles Ward Crampton (May 26, 1877- 1964) was a physician, medical researcher, and teacher. Born in New York City, he attended the College of the City of New York, New York University, and in 1900 graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. His major contributions to the medical field include work with geriatrics and gerontology, adolescent hygiene and physical fitness, posture, and blood pressure and circulatory systems. He created what is today known as the Crampton Test for Fatal Shock, which measures the physical condition and resistance of one’s pulse and blood pressure in the resting and standing positions. Crampton was a major in the U.S. Army Medical Reserve and acted as Special Adviser to the U.S. Department of the East during World War I. From 1934 to 1937, he regularly wrote columns for the Boy Scouts of America’s magazine Boys’ Life. Crampton served as Chairman of the Committee on Physical Fitness through the Federal Security Agency, Chairman of the Committee on the Health of Adolescents, and the chairman for the sub-committee on Geriatrics and Gerontology through the medical society of New York County. In addition, he founded the Aristogenic Association, which he described as: “While Eugenics and Kakogenics are generally understood to refer respectively to consideration of good and evil in the sphere of Genetics, Aristogenics refers to the best.”
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