Developed an effective method for treating leprosy.
The daughter of a prominent Seattle Black family, Alice Augusta Ball developed an effective method for treating leprosy using water soluble chaulmoogra oil from the seeds of the Hydnocarpus wightianus tree found on the Indian subcontinent. It had been used medicinally since the 1300s, but western treatment was not very effective, and every method of application had its problems. At the age of 23, Ball developed a technique to make the oil injectable and water-soluble. It would become the only viable treatment for leprosy during the early 20th century, until sulfonamide drugs were developed in the 1940s.
This brilliant young chemist did not live to receive recognition for her significant contribution to science. (At the time, leprosy or Hansen’s Disease was a highly stigmatized disease with virtually no chance of recovery.) She died at the age of 24 – reportedly of tuberculosis but likely a result of chlorine poisoning while demonstrating how to properly use a gas mask in the laboratory. After Ball’s death, her graduate study advisor, Arthur L. Dean, undertook further trials and by 1919, a college chemistry laboratory was producing large quantities of the injectable chaulmoogra extract. He never acknowledged Ball as the originator or credited her work, but rather named it the “Dean Method” for treating leprosy.
In 1922, Ball’s colleague, Dr. Harry T. Hollmann, an Acting Assistant Surgeon at the Leprosy Investigation Station of the US Public Health Service in Hawai’i –where over 8,000 patients were exiled from 1866-1969– wrote an article attempting to inform people it was the “Ball Method,” but no one believed him. In the 1970s, Kathryn Takara and Stanley Ali, both professors at the University of Hawai’i, found Ball’s research records and made efforts to have her recognized. In the 1990s, Ali came across The Samaritans of Molkai, a 1932 book that specifically recognized the contributions of a young chemist, later identified as Ball. The University finally honored Ball in 2000 by dedicating a plaque to her on the school’s only chaulmoogra tree, and “Alice Ball Day” is now celebrated every four years on February 29.
Alice Ball was the first female and African American to receive a master’s degree from the University of Hawai’i, and also the university’s first female and African American chemistry professor. Previously, she earned two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Washington, in chemistry and pharmacy. Alongside her pharmacy instructor, William Dehn, she co-published an article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a rare accomplishment for a woman, especially for a Black woman of this time.
Awards and Accolades
- 1915, first female & first African-American to earn an MS from University of Hawaii; first female chemistry professor at University of Hawaii
- 2007, Medal of Distinction, University pf Hawai’i Board of Regents
- 2016, placed on list of Most Influential Women in Hawaiian History by Hawaii Magazine
- 2017, Alice Augusta Ball Endowed Scholarship established at University of Hawaii
- 2018, park in Seattle, WA named after her
- 2019, the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine added her name to the frieze above their main building alongside Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale
- 2020, short film, The Ball Method, premiered at the Pan African Film Festival
- 2020, a satellite named after her launched into space
