Alice Ball’s story is one reason I began writing about/honoring the remarkable women overlooked, forgotten, ignored, or simply erased from history. In what would become a prophetic statement, Ball once wrote in her high-school yearbook, “I work and work, and still it seems that I have done nothing.”
Her story is one of intersectional discrimination – she was African American; she was a woman; and she was a brilliant scientist in the early 20th century.
The first woman to graduate from the College (now University) of Hawaii in 1915 with a master’s degree in chemistry, she was the first Black research chemist and instructor in the Chemistry Department. And in a groundbreaking discovery, she became the first person to develop an effective injectable treatment for the treatment of Hansen’s disease, better known as leprosy — the only treatment that worked until the development of antibiotics in the 1940s.
But for decades, her contributions were erased from history when a male colleague claimed credit for, and reaped accolades from, Alice Ball’s discoveries.
Early Life and Studies
Born in 1892 in Seattle, Washington, her father was an attorney and newspaper editor; her mother was a photographer, as was her maternal grandfather. One of the first African Americans to learn the daguerreotype process, he captured portraits of 19th-century figures like Frederick Douglass and Charles Dickens. In fact, it was in his cramped darkroom that young Alice discovered chemical processes and her passion for learning.
One of just a handful of Black students at Seattle High School, she was an excellent student. At the University of Washington, she earned two degrees; the first in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1912; the second in the science of pharmacy in 1914, making her the first Black woman to graduate from the university with a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry.
A Medical Breakthrough
Awarded a full scholarship to pursue graduate studies at the College of Hawaii, she focused her studies on the kava root, long used by Pacific Islanders for ceremonial and medicinal purposes. As a result of her success in extracting and analyzing its active properties, in 1915 she became the first Black woman to earn a master’s degree from the College of Hawaii.
Her pioneering research drew the attention of Dr. Harry Hollmann, who ran Hawaii’s Leprosy Investigation Station at the College of Hawaii, and Dr. Arthur Dean at Kalihi Hospital in Honolulu, both of whom were trying to develop a treatment for Hansen’s disease.
At the time, the standard treatment involved something called chaulmoogra oil — a substance in the seeds of a tropical evergreen common throughout Asia. Its active compound inhibited the growth of a specific bacteria called Mycobacterium leprae that caused the crippling nerve damage and large skin lesions typical of Hansen’s disease.
Severe Side Effects
But there was a problem. Given by mouth, it induced nausea; when injected, it clumped under the skin, causing painful abscesses. Dr. Hollmann challenged Ball to extract the active ingredient from the chaulmoogra oil, just as she had from the kava root.
Alice Ball was up for the challenge – making chaulmoogra oil effective by isolating its active compounds, then modifying the chemical structure to make it water-soluble for injection. In less than two years, she developed the first effective treatment for leprosy — not just alleviating its symptoms, but actually stopping its progression. The New York Times quoted Dr. Hollmann as saying, “After a great deal of experimental work, Miss Ball solved the problem for me.”
For the first time in history, leprosy patients had hope for an effective treatment rather than living their lives in isolation. Alice Ball’s work would transform the lives of thousands of patients confined to leprosariums around the world, including those on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Beginning in 1866, the Kingdom of Hawaii forcibly removed what would amount to more than 8,000 leprosy patients to remote “leper colonies,” pronouncing them legally dead. Children born during a patient’s confinement were removed from their parents and placed for adoption. Thanks to Alice Ball, thousands could be brought back to life and return home.
Untimely Tragedy and Scientific Theft
In 1916, just one year after her discovery, Alice Ball became seriously ill. No official cause was ever determined, but some attributed it to chlorine gas exposure in her laboratory. She died at the age of 24, before completing her research and being able to publish her findings. Following a funeral service in Seatle, she was cremated; the final resting place or disposition of her remains is unknown.
Within a few years of her death, Dr. Arthur Dean, who had initially reached out to Ball, published her research in his name — what some in the scientific world considered to be the most egregious scientific theft in history. He picked up where she left off, refined her methods, and published papers about Alice Ball’s successful treatment without once mentioning her foundational contributions.
But it got worse. He presented her work as his own discovery, calling it the “Dean Method.” For decades, he was lauded for developing the first effective leprosy treatment. Medical journals, textbooks and historical accounts credited him with the scientific breakthrough that was rightfully Alice Ball’s. While the scientific community celebrated Dean as a medical pioneer, they completely erased her name from the record.
Her Legacy
Alice Ball was finally restored to her rightful place in scientific history thanks to Kathryn Takara, a Hawaiian historian who happened to discover her original thesis. More than 80 years after her death, she was formally and publicly recognized for her groundbreaking leprosy treatment.
In 1922, Alice Ball’s colleague, Dr. Harry Hollmann, published a scientific paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) explicitly restoring credit where credit was due by naming the injectable procedure she made possible the “Ball Method.”
It’s also likely she was the first African American to be published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society when they published articles she co-authored in 1914 and 1917. Her treatment proved effective enough that three years following her death, 78 leprosy patients recovered and were sent home from the leper colony at Kalaupapa on Molokai.
In 2007, the University of Hawaii posthumously bestowed upon her its highest honor, the Regents Medal of Distinction, recognizing people with great achievements who help the university, state, or nation. And on February 29, 2020, Hawaii’s governor proclaimed “Alice Ball Day,” dedicating a bronze plaque in her honor beneath a chaulmoogra tree planted on the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus.
The University also established the Alice Ball Scholarship for students studying chemistry, biochemistry, biology, or microbiology who typify the characteristics that Ball displayed in her studies and research.
She was also inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2022 for her groundbreaking work. And in 2024, a life-sized bust of Alice Ball was unveiled at the Hamilton Library on the University of Hawaii’s Manoa campus.