In the early 20th century, 8,000 medical patients received a miracle they thought was impossible – they got to go home.

Hansen’s disease, better known as leprosy, is a chronic bacterial infection that plagued people across the globe for centuries. It resulted in intense stigma for those who suffered from the disease – and ultimately, exile. These individuals were sent away to live in colonies for the rest of their lives, and families would hold funerals at their departure. But that all changed thanks to one brilliant researcher: Alice Ball.

Alice Ball came into the world on July 24, 1892, in the city of Seattle, Washington. She inherited the curiosity and determination of her family – most notably James Ball Sr., her grandfather who was one of the first Black Americans to practice the early photography technique of daguerreotype. This process involved applying mercury vapor to a sheet of fumed, silver-plated copper positioned in a camera, then chemically treating the metal sheet to finish development and capture a photograph.

Her mother, father, and aunt were also photographers. Her father, James Presley, was a newspaper editor as well as a lawyer. Alice, her brothers William and Robert, and her sister Addie grew up in an ambitious household (with plenty of chemical photography developing agents to spark their curiosity).

During Alice’s childhood, she moved to what ultimately would be the setting for her most important discovery – but only briefly. Seeking to alleviate the symptoms of her grandfather’s arthritis, Alice’s family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii. Her grandfather died there, and Alice’s family went back to Seattle after one year. It wouldn’t be the last Alice saw of Hawai’i.

In 1910, Alice graduated from Seattle High School and went directly to the University of Washington. She thrived in the scientific and academic environment and earned two undergraduate degrees in just four years: one in pharmaceutical chemistry, and one in pharmacy.

A pioneer for both Black Americans and women, Alice co-authored a 10-page article with her pharmacy professor, Benzoylations in Ether Solution, published in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society at the age of 22.

After receiving multiple scholarships and offers from graduate schools, Alice chose to return to her brief childhood home and enroll in the University of Hawaii (known at that time as the College of Hawai’i) for her master’s degree. In a single year, Alice became the first Black American and first woman to graduate with a master’s degree from the university’s college of chemistry with her thesis “The Chemical Constituents of Piper Methysticum; The Chemical Constituents of the Active Principle of the Ava Root.”

After earning her master’s, Alice was hired as the university’s very first Black and first woman chemistry professor and continued to perform her research with the school. It was this work, and her promising research focus, that caught the attention of Dr. Harry T. Hollmann.

On the island of Moloka‘i existed one of the leprosy treatment colonies where those with the disease were banished – the isolation facility of Kalaupapa. Dr. Harry Hollmann was a physician at the Kalihi hospital in Honolulu who studied leprosy treatment for the facility and became interested in Alice’s research.

Dr. Hollmann had studied a common (but inconsistent, and often ineffective) leprosy treatment using the oil from the Chaulmoogra tree seed. It was known that the active components in Chaulmoogra oil were effective for treating leprosy, but the methods of administering the medicine caused many issues. When given orally, patients usually vomited it up due to its extremely sickening taste. When injected, it was very painful and patients would often develop abscesses and further skin damage and disorders.

Dr. Hollman needed someone who could isolate the active component of Chaulmoogra oil – and he turned to Alice Ball. Her research on the Ava (Kava) root was similar in concept to the Chaulmoogra puzzle, so he reached out to Professor Ball for her help.

Alice worked tirelessly to crack the Chaulmoogra code.

In less than a year, she isolated ethyl ester groups from Chaulmoogra fatty acids and discovered a way to make the active component of the oil-soluble in water. Doing this meant it could be injected without the debilitating side-effects seen before. Alice was only 23 when she made this discovery, which is now known as the Ball Method. At the time, it was the only effective treatment for leprosy.

Alice’s discovery revolutionized leprosy treatment. Thousands of patients were treated and discharged from isolation facilities over the next several years. What had seemed the impossible – getting to return to their families and lives – was now possible. Alice’s treatment became the standard for decades until sulfa drugs were invented in the 1940s, which paved the way for the leprosy cures available today.

In 1916, Alice became very ill. There are conflicting records and explanations for her early death at the age of 24, but a prominent theory is that she developed chlorine poisoning from demonstrations while teaching. She went back to Seattle in the fall of that year and died on December 31, 1916.

Her work was continued – but initially uncredited. After her death, the University of Hawaii president Arthur L. Dean published her findings as his own, calling it the “Dean Method.”

In 1922, Dr. Hollmann finally spoke out about the miscredited discovery.

However, despite Hollmann’s correction, Alice’s work still did not receive mainstream recognition until many years later. In the 1970s, professor Kathryn Takara at the University of Hawaii took up the task of bringing Alice’s story back to life. Nearly lost to time, Alice Ball’s accomplishments and impact on the scientific community are now widely celebrated.

Many decades after Alice Ball’s discovery, she finally received formal posthumous recognition, including:

Alice was also ranked among the most influential women in Hawaiian history by Hawai’i Magazine in 2016 and was recognized by the city of Seattle with a park named in her honor.

Alice’s story isn’t just one of pioneering scientific discovery. It also emphasizes the importance of awareness of leaders and innovators among women in science. Now, you can help to share Alice’s story and carry a piece of her legacy with you with the Chaulmoogra Seed Enamel Pin by Dissent Pins. The 1.5-inch pin features the seed that Alice used to create her groundbreaking method and treatment.

Dissent Pins’ Women in Science series helps to continue celebrating Alice’s life and story, and 50% of proceeds for this pin go to support Black Girls Code, DIY Girls, and ChickTech.