The Ball Method for Hansen's disease
An injectable chaulmoogra-oil treatment developed for Hansen's disease.
Scientist Exhibit
Alice Ball
Chemistry
1892 – 1916
United States
Developed an injectable treatment derived from chaulmoogra oil
Overview
About Alice Ball
Alice Ball developed a chemical method that transformed chaulmoogra oil into compounds that could be absorbed and injected. The resulting treatment became the most effective therapy available at the time for people with Hansen's disease. Ball completed the work while teaching chemistry in Hawaiʻi, but died at only twenty-four.
Scientific Contribution
Key Discovery
Life Timeline
Important Moments
1914
publication
Publishes chemistry research while at the University of Washington
Ball coauthored chemistry research before beginning graduate study in Hawaiʻi, becoming one of the first African American women published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
1915
education
Earns a master's degree in chemistry from the College of Hawaiʻi
Ball became the first woman and first African American to earn a master's degree from what is now the University of Hawaiʻi.
1915
career
Becomes a chemistry instructor in Hawaiʻi
After graduating, Ball became the institution's first African American woman chemistry instructor.
1916
discovery
Develops the Ball Method for chaulmoogra oil
Ball isolated injectable active agents from chaulmoogra oil, creating the first successful treatment method used widely against Hansen's disease before sulfone drugs.
Places & Networks
Institutions
university
University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Honolulu , United States
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