Alice Augusta Ball – Leprosy Treatment
By
John C Abercrombie
Today is day 4 of 31 and focuses on a young scientist, Alice Augusta Ball who found a cure for Leprosy, today called Hansen’s Disease at the age of 22. Quite a remarkable achievement for anyone, let alone, a 22 year old Black female scientist.
As we see this from objective point of view, we see that the concept of segregation deprives Blacks of the opportunity to reach their greatest achievements that we capable of reaching. This dispariety cheats the entire country and world of great innovations.
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Leprosy as it was called in days gone by and now is referred to as Hansen’s Disease is a long term infection that can lead to damage of the nerves, respiratory tract, skin and eyes and may result in the lack of ability to feel pain leading to parts of a person’s extremities being subjected to, repeated injuries and infection due to unnoticed injuries. The affected person may have muscle weakness, and or poor eyesight.
The symptoms may begin within a year, but for some it may take up to 20 years or more. Leprosy has a low pathogenicity, ability to cause disease, and is spread by extensive contact. It is believed to spread through cough or contact with fluids from the nose.
Genetic factors and immune factors may play a role in catching the disease.it occurs more commonly among people living in poverty. Because there was no known cure, many were exiled to leper colonies. That is until Alice Augusta Ball produced a treatment.
Alice Augusta Ball was a Black female chemist who developed the first successful treatment for leprosy also called Hansen’s disease. This amazing woman was the first to hold a Master of Science degree from the College of Hawaii, now known as the University of Hawaii.
Born July 24, 1892, in Seattle, Washington as Alice Augusta Ball her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a photographer. Her grandfather James P Ball was a well known photographer. The family enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle. The family moved in 1903 to Honolulu in hopes that the health of James Ball Senior would be helped by the warmer climate. Following his death, the family moved back to Seattle and Alice excelled at Seattle High, graduating in 1910. She then got degrees from the University of Washington and the College of Hawaii.
Ball earned degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1912, pharmacy in 1914 from the University of Washington. She then transferred to the University of Hawaii and became the first Black woman to graduate with a Master of Science degree in 1915. She became the first woman chemistry instructor at the school at the age of 23.
As a researcher she worked extensively on a treatment of leprosy or Hansen’s disease leading to the first injectable treatent using oil from the chaulmoogra tree. Previous treatments were only moderately successful. The chaulmoogra had been used as a topical agent in Chinese and Indian medicine. Ball successfully isolated the oil into fatty acid components allowing her to manipulate the oil into a water soluble form, a therefore injectable form. This treatment became known as the “Ball Method.” It has been used on thousands of infected individuals for over 30 years until sulfone drugs were introduced.
The “Ball Method” was so successful that leprosy patents were discharged from hospitals and facilities around the world. One of these facilities was Kalaupapa, an isolation facility on Molokai, Hawaii where thousands of people suffering who often died after years of isolation. The deaths were the result of the length of time they were isolated because of a lack of a cure. As a result of Ball’s work these banished people could return to their families free from symptoms.
Unfortunately, Ball died December 31, 1916, as the result of inhaling chlorine gas. There was also a tragic part to the story in that Ball did not get to see the benefits of her great discovery. In addition, Dr Arthur Dean continued Ball’s research without giving her any credit for the discovery. Dean even claimed the work for himself and called the treatment the “Dean Method.” The reality of the time and culture is that it was commonplace for men to take credit for women’s discoveries and we see it once again.
Six years after her death, in 1922, Dr Harry T Holliman, assistant surgeon at Kalihi Hospital who had originally encouraged Ball to explore the chaulmoogra oil published a paper giving credit to Ball that she so richly deserved. Ball, however, remained largely forgotten from scientific history until recently.
In 2000, the University of Hawaii-Mānoa placed a bronze plaque in front of a chaulmoogra tree on campus to honor Ball’s life and her important discovery. Former Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii, Mazie Hirono, also declared February 29 “Alice Ball Day.” In 2007, the University of Hawaii posthumously awarded her with the Regents’ Medal of Distinction.
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The 22 Year-Old Chemist Who Changed Leprosy Treatment |
Great Minds A cure for leprosy eluded humans for thousands of years, until the pioneering chemistry work of Alice Ball. With her treatment, patients recovered enough to be discharged from the hospital by the hundreds.
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a look at Alice Ball’s research that led to the cure of Leprosy. This video is about Alice Ball’s Research. This video talks further about Alice Balls Research and her breakthroughs in finding a new cure to Leprosy. At the young age of 23 she made these amazing discoveries. Unfortunately, she didn’t get to enjoy her success
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A major reassessment, based on hitherto unpublished manuscript material, of a disease whose history has attracted more myths and misunderstandings than any other.
One of the most important publications for many years in the fields of medical, religious and social history. Rawcliffe’s book completely overhauls our understanding of leprosy and contributes immensely to our knowledge of theEnglish middle ages. This is a fascinating study that will be a seminal work in the history of leprosy for many years to come. EHR
Set firmly in the medical, religious and cultural milieu of the European MiddleAges, this book is the first serious, comprehensive study of a disease surrounded by misconceptions and prejudices. Even specialists will be surprised to learn that most of our stereotyped ideas about the segregation of medieval lepers originated in the nineteenth century; that leprosy excited a vast range of responses, from admiration to revulsion; that in the later Middle Ages it was diagnosed readily even by laity; that a wide range of treatment was available; that medieval leper hospitals were no more austere than the monasteries on which they were modelled; that the decline of leprosy was not monocausal but implied a complex web of factors – medical, environmental, social andlegal. Written with consummate skill, subtlety and rigour, this book will change forever the image of the medieval leper.
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ALICE AUGUSTA BALL
Alice Augusta Ball was an African American Chemist who developed the first successful and effective treatment for Hansen’s disease ( leprosy)
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Alice Ball:
The Forgotten Chemist Alice Ball was the first female and African-American chemistry professor at The University of Hawai’i. At 23, she created the first effective chemical drug treatment for leprosy, thus providing residents of the town of Kalaupapa an escape from lifelong quarantine.
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Alice Ball #BlackHERstoryMonth 16/28 Alice Augusta Ball was an African American chemist who developed an injectable oil extract that was the most effective treatment for leprosy, also known as Hansen’s Disease, until the 1940s. She was the first woman and first African American to receive a master’s degree from the University of Hawaii, she was also the first woman chemistry professor at the university.
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In this case we see a brilliant scientist who was deprived of credit for her work. This was the result of the practice of failure to give credit to women. This is a brazen example of the practice. We have also seen it in the case of Black men. Fortunately, although posthumously she is receiving some of the credit due. This should serve as an example that people have excellence within them, all they need is a chance to express it.