William Cramer (pathologist)

William Cramer was born in Germany on 2 June 1878.[1] He received his first tertiary education at the University of Munich,[2] and received his Ph.D. at the University of Berlin in 1901.[2] He achieved his D.Sc. at the University of Edinburgh in 1908,[2] during which time he had worked under Swale Vincent.[3] Cramer took the English Conjoint qualification after nine years as a chemical physiology lecturer at Edinburgh.[2] He had worked briefly for the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in 1904;[1] he rejoined the organisation in 1914.[2]

In 1907 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, Francis H A Marshall, Alexander Crum Brown and James Cossar Ewart.[4]

Shortly after the outbreak of World War I, Cramer became a naturalised British citizen. He was elected a Foreign Member of the German Society for the Investigation of Cancer.[2] In 1933, he was an official British delegate at the International Cancer Congress in Madrid,[2] and again in 1934 at the International Cancer Research conference in Paris.[2] In 1939, after 25 years with the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, Cramer relocated to St. Louis, Missouri,[2] where he was head pathologist at the Barnard Skin and Cancer Hospital,[2] and a research associate at Washington University.[2]

Throughout his career, Cramer authored numerous papers on cancer, physiology, and biochemistry.[2] His textbook, Practical Course in Chemical Physiology, had reached its fourth edition by 1920.[2] Cramer belonged to the Physiological Society, the Pathological Society, and the Biochemical Society.[2]