18. Alice Ball developed the first successful treatment for a long-dreaded disease
For most Americans, leprosy is a disease from Biblical times. They are surprised to learn that as recently as the 1980s over 5 million people worldwide were afflicted with leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. Treatment with antibiotics has brought that number down, though over 200,000 cases are still diagnosed annually, usually in underdeveloped countries. The cause of leprosy was identified by G. H. Armauer Hansen in 1873. It was the first bacterium positively identified to cause disease in humans. But there still was no effective treatment for the disease, although some doctors treated patients with mercury, often leading to mercury poisoning.
Alice Ball became the first woman and the first Black woman to receive a Master’s degree (Chemistry) from what became the University of Hawaii. While serving as a research chemist and instructor in the university’s chemistry department (also a first for an African American woman) she developed the first successful treatment for leprosy. Her treatment became the accepted means of treating and curing leprosy for decades, until the development of antibiotic drugs in the 1940s. She did not live to see the results of her success. She died on New Year’s Eve, 1916, at the age of just 24. Not until years after her death did her work become well known in the medical community. Her treatment became known as the Ball Method. Hawaii celebrates February 29 every four years as Alice Ball Day in her memory.