This photograph shows a soldier in the American Air Forces (AAF) seated on top of a table. He is strapped into a machine that measures his breathing and exertion. Peter Karpovich designed the apparatus while he was chief of a physical fitness laboratory for the AAF during World War II. The laboratory was located at the School of Aviation Medicine in Randolph Field, Texas.
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Publisher:
Springfield College
Notes:
Peter V. Karpovich (1896-1975) was born in Russia and trained as a medical doctor at the State Military Academy of Medicine in Petrograd (St. Petersburg), Russia in 1919. Under increasing political and professional turmoil, he fled to Latvia in 1922. In Latvia, Karpovich worked at the Riga YMCA. In 1925, he traveled to the United States for an opportunity to conduct research at Springfield College. While there, he enrolled at the college as a special advanced student and earned a master’s degree in physical education. In 1927, while completing his studies, he became a professor of physiology at the college. In the late 1940s, he met and married his second wife, Josephine Rathbone, an acclaimed scholar of physical education and relaxation. From 1961 to 1969, he served as the director of the physiology research laboratory at Springfield College, where he published several seminal books. Karpovich was a founding member of the American College of Sports Medicine and a consultant to many government, private and educational organizations. He was and remains an internationally recognized pioneer in physical education.
