Eloise Blaine Cram

Eloise Blaine Cram (1896-February 9, 1957) was an American zoologist and parasitologist. She was born in Davenport, Iowa, in 1896, daughter of prominent newspaperman Ralph Warren Cram and Mabel (LaVenture) Cram. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Chicago in 1919, and received her PhD from George Washington University in 1925. She died, of bone cancer, in San Diego, California, on February 9, 1957.

In 1920, Cram entered government service as a zoologist for the USDA Bureau of Animal Industry (BAI), where she became noted as a world authority on the parasites of poultry, and eventually rose to the position of Head, Parasites of Poultry and Game Birds. In 1936, Cram left the BAI to take a position at the Zoology Lab of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, where she remained until her retirement in 1956.

While at the NIH, Cram contributed to the scientific study of pinworm, but her major contribution to parasitology and to science in general was her pioneering research into curbing the disease schistosomiasis (liver flukes), endemic to tropical regions. She made breakthrough discoveries regarding the life- and vector cycles of snails key to transmission of the often-fatal disease to humans, thus aiding in reducing the international health costs of the disease. By the time of her retirement, Cram had produced over 160 papers and monographs on various subjects relating to animal parasitology, had become an international authority on helminthic diseases, and was working in the NIH's lab on tropical diseases. In 1955, the year before her retirement, she served a term as the only woman president of the American Society of Parasitologists.