Alice Ball

Alice Ball was an African American chemist who invented a pioneering treatment for Hansen's disease (leprosy) that required a series of injections involving the extract of the chaulmoogra tree. The process was eventually named the "Ball Method" in her honor. Shortly after inventing her innovative cure, Ball died at the age of 24, possibly from chlorine poisoning after a lab accident. In the years after her death, Arthur L. Dean continued Ball's research and eventually published the findings under his own name. Ball's key contributions toward curing leprosy were largely forgotten and credited only to Dean until a University of Hawaii researcher discovered Ball's role and corrected the oversight. In 2000, the school erected a plaque in her memory in...