Alice Augusta Ball was a brilliant scientist who pioneered the first successful treatment for Hansen’s Disease (also known as leprosy). Before Ball’s remarkable discovery at just 23 years old, most people with Hansen’s Disease experienced tremendous pain and social alienation. For 80 years, the US government permanently banished thousands of people to an inescapable island, where they suffered inhumane conditions without their families. At only 23 years old, Alice Ball made a breakthrough that so many before her failed to achieve: a safe, effective treatment for Hansen’s Disease. Ball tragically died at age 24, but the impact of her work lived on for decades to come. Where hope was once lost, Alice Ball injected life into the search for a cure. Ball’s treatment remained the standard of care for three decades and sparked a renewed investment in Hansen’s Disease research. In the 1940s, the creation of sulfone antibiotics began a new era of Hansen’s Disease treatment, leading to the cures of today.
Alice Ball displayed her scientific talents from a young age. In high school, she was one of a handful students in her graduating class of 1910 to complete the school’s scientific concentration program. After gradation, Ball earned two Bachelor of Science degrees from the University of Washington: one in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and the other in Pharmacy. She went on to earn a full scholarship to attend College of Hawai’i (now University of Hawai‘i) for her master’s program. She became the first African American, and the first woman, to graduate with a master’s degree in chemistry from the university. She was also the school’s first female, and first Black, chemistry instructor. Her master’s thesis involved extracting and analyzing the active ingredients of awa, or kava, root, work which attracted the attention of Dr. Harry T. Hollmann, U.S. Public Health Officer for Hawai‘i. Hollmann asked Ball to help solve a mystery that had confounded the world’s greatest minds for centuries: how to treat Hansen’s Disease. At the time, the government’s response to the disease was to detain and quarantine people indefinitely.
This time, Alice Ball analyzed the chemical properties the chaulmoogra tree, the oil of which had been used as a “folk remedy” for leprosy. Through an innovative process, Ball isolated the oil’s active ingredient and turned it into a usable form that could be injected safely into patients. Dr. Hollmann tested Ball’s treatment on his patients, and found that it killed the bacteria responsible for the disease, leading to symptom relief. Hollmann shared these remarkable results in a 1922 journal article and referred to Alice’s innovation as the Ball Method. The Ball Method reduced lesions and pain for thousands of patients and liberated many people from the Hansen’s Disease isolation facilities.
Unfortunately, Alice Ball did not live to see the benefits of her work, as she died in 1916 from accidental chlorine gas exposure. Ball passed away before she could publish her findings. Upon her death, College of Hawaii President Arthur Dean and Professor Richard Wrenshall claimed credit for her work, publishing her findings as their own. They did not mention her name in either of the journal articles they wrote. Arthur Dean took credit, replacing “the Ball Method” with “the Dean Method”. It took over 50 years for Ball to be recognized as true creator of the treatment.
In the year 2000, University of Hawaii-Mānoa placed a plaque at a chaulmoogra tree on campus to honor Alice Ball’s life and major contributions to science. In 2007, University of Hawaii posthumously awarded Ball with the Regents’ Medal of Distinction. The state of Hawai’i has officially declared February 28 Alice Ball Day to celebrate her inspiring legacy.
To learn more about Alice Ball, see:
Alice Augusta Ball: The unrecognized chemist behind a breakthrough leprosy treatment
