Alice Augusta Ball (July 24, 1892 – December 31, 1916) was a Black American chemist whose groundbreaking work produced the first effective treatment for Hansen's disease, better known as leprosy. She was born in Seattle, Washington, to James Presley Ball Jr. and Laura Louise Ball. Her father was a photographer, journalist, and lawyer, while her mother left a photography career to raise the family. Ball excelled academically, graduating from Seattle High School with strong interests in the sciences.
She continued her education at the University of Washington, earning a pharmaceutical chemistry degree in 1912 and a bachelor's degree in pharmacy in 1914. During her studies, she co-authored a research paper on benzoylation reactions published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, making her one of the first Black American women to publish in a major scientific journal. Ball earned a scholarship to the College of Hawaiʻi (now University of Hawaiʻi), where she completed a master's degree in chemistry in 1915, becoming the first woman and first Black American to achieve the degree, and was subsequently appointed as the college's first female chemistry instructor.
While working in Hawaiʻi, Ball was approached by Harry T. Hollmann of the Leprosy Investigation Station, who sought help improving the therapeutic use of chaulmoogra oil, a traditional but highly ineffective treatment for leprosy. The disease carried a severe stigma, with patients often being forcibly isolated in remote settlements with horrible conditions. Though chaulmoogra oil had shown potential for centuries, its extreme viscosity and poor absorption made it nearly impossible to administer effectively. Ingested doses caused nausea and vomiting, while injectable forms caused painful lesions under the skin.
Ball's critical innovation was developing a method to chemically modify chaulmoogra oil's fatty acids into ethyl esters, making the compound water-soluble and suitable for injection. This process, later called the "Ball Method," allowed the drug to be absorbed into the bloodstream safely and efficiently, overcoming the problems that had prevented earlier use. By 1920, health authorities in Hawaiʻi reported that many patients who received the Ball Method were able to return home, rather than remain in lifelong quarantine.
Ball died unexpectedly in 1916 at age 24 before she could publish her findings. After her death, others took credit for her work, but later scholarship and institutional recognition restored her legacy. The Ball Method itself became medically obsolete after the 1946 development of a monotherapy using dapsone. The technique is historically significant, marking a turning point between early botanical medicine and modern pharmaceutical chemistry. Ball's innovation improved medical outcomes for thousands of patients worldwide.
Alice Augusta Ball was born on July 24, 1892, in Seattle, Washington, to James Presley Ball and Laura Louise (Howard) Ball. She was the third of four children, with two older brothers, William and Robert, and a younger sister, Addie. Her family was middle-class and well-off, as Ball's father was a newspaper editor of The Colored Citizen, photographer, and lawyer. Her mother also worked as a photographer. Her grandfather, James Ball Sr., was a photographer, and one of the first Black Americans to make use of daguerreotype, the process of printing photographs onto metal plates. Some researchers have suggested that her parents and grandfather's love for photography may have played a role in her love for chemistry, as they worked with mercury vapors and iodine-sensitized silver plates to develop photos. Despite being prominent members and advocates of the African-American community, both of Ball's parents are listed as "White" on her birth certificate. This may have been an attempt to reduce the prejudice and racism their daughter would face and help her "pass" in white society.
Alice Ball and her family moved from Seattle to Honolulu in 1902, where she attended Central Grammar School (formerly and once again called Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani Middle School). Her family moved to Hawaii with the hopes that the warmer weather would ease her grandfather's arthritis, though he died shortly after the move. In 1905 they relocated back to Seattle after only three years in Hawaii. After returning to Seattle, Ball attended Seattle High School, where she was an active participant in her school's drama club and was known for her quick wit and ambitious personality. She graduated from this school in 1910, receiving top grades in the sciences.
Ball went on to study chemistry at the University of Washington, earning a degree in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1912, and a bachelor's degree in the science of pharmacy two years later in 1914. Alongside her pharmacy instructor, Williams Dehn, she co-published a 10-page article, "Benzoylations in Ether Solution", in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in 1914. Publishing an article in a respected scientific journal was an uncommon accomplishment for a woman, especially for a Black woman at this time. Ball became the first African American to have her work included in a publication from that journal.
After graduating, Ball was offered many scholarships. She received an offer from the University of California Berkeley, as well as the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaiʻi), where she decided to study for a master's degree in chemistry. At the College of Hawaii, her master's thesis, titled "The Chemical Constituents of Piper methysticum; or The Chemical Constituents of the Active Principle of the Ava Root" involved studying the chemical properties of the Kava plant species (Piper methysticum). Endemic to Oceania and common throughout Polynesia, this plant was used in the treatment of anxiety, headaches, kidney disorders, and other hyperactive illnesses. Because of this research and her understanding of the chemical makeup of plants, she was later approached by Harry T. Hollmann, who was an acting assistant surgeon at the Leprosy Investigation Station of the U. S. Public Health Service in Hawaii, to study chaulmoogra oil and its chemical properties. Chaulmoogra oil had been the best treatment available for leprosy for hundreds of years, and Ball developed a much more effective injectable form. In 1915 she became the first woman and first Black American to graduate with a master's degree from the College of Hawaii. She was also the first African-American "research chemist and instructor" in the College of Hawaii's chemistry department.
At the University of Hawaiʻi, Ball investigated the chemical makeup and active principle of Piper methysticum (kava) for her master's thesis. Because of this work, she was contacted by Harry T. Hollmann at Kalihi Hospital in Hawaii, who needed an assistant for his research into the treatment of leprosy.
At the time, leprosy, or Hansen's Disease, was a highly stigmatized disease with virtually no chance of recovery. Over the course of 103 years, starting in 1866 until 1969, over 8,000 patients diagnosed with leprosy were exiled to the Hawaiian island of Molokai on the Kalaupapa peninsula, with the expectation that they would die there. Most of these people were Native Hawaiians, while the Haole people were allowed to leave the islands and pursue more extensive treatment on the mainland. Since they lacked an acquired immunity, the native population was especially susceptible to leprosy, with the first case appearing in 1835. The best treatment available was chaulmoogra oil, from the seeds of the Hydnocarpus wightianus tree from the Indian subcontinent, which had been used medicinally from as early as the 1300s. But Western treatment developed by British physician Frederic John Moaut in 1854 was not very effective, and every method of application had problems. It was too sticky to be effectively used topically, and as an injection the oil's viscous consistency caused it to clump under the skin and form blisters rather than being absorbed. These blisters formed in perfect rows and made it look "as if the patient's skin had been replaced by bubble wrap". Ingesting the oil was not effective either because it had an acrid taste that often induced vomiting.