Alice Ball’s treatment for leprosy
Nina Notman tells the overlooked story of historic African-American chemist Alice Ball who developed the first partially-effective treatment for leprosy
Alice Ball was born in Seattle, US, in 1892 and became the first African-American to graduate from the College of Hawaii, and the first woman to earn a chemistry master’s there. She became the first African-American female instructor in the college’s chemistry department, and the first head of the department in 1915. With leprosy rife on the islands, she produced a treatment based on oil from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree, which was used until the 1960s.
But Ball died in 1916 and her work was forgotten – the president of the college claimed the credit in published papers. She is only just getting the credit she deserved for so long.