Alice Ball

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Alice Ball

Alice Augusta Ball (born July 24, 1892 in Seattle , Washington, USA; † December 31, 1916 there ) was an African American chemist . She developed an injectable oil extract that was the most effective treatment for leprosy until the 1940s . Ball was the first woman and person of African American descent to graduate from the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaiʻi ). She was also the first African-American chemistry professor at that university.

Youth and education

Alice Augusta ball was in the July 24, 1892 Seattle in the US state of Washington born to James Presley Ball and Laura Louise (Howard) ball. Ball had two older brothers, William and Robert, and a younger sister named Addie. Her family can be considered middle to upper middle class, as Ball's father was a newspaper editor, photographer and lawyer. Her grandfather, James Presley Ball (James Ball Sr.), was a famous photographer and one of the first African American to master the daguerreotype . Her mother and aunt were also photographers.

Alice Ball and her family moved from Seattle to Honolulu during Alice's childhood in hopes the warm weather would relieve her grandfather, James Ball Sr.'s arthritis. He died shortly after moving, and they moved back to Seattle after a year. There Ball attended Seattle High School, where she received top grades in science and graduated in 1910.

Ball studied chemistry at the University of Washington . There she obtained a bachelor's degree in pharmaceutical chemistry in 1912 and a second degree in pharmacy two years later . With her pharmacy lecturer William M. Dehn, she published a ten-page article entitled Benzoylations in Ether Solution in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society . That was an exceptional achievement, not just for an African American woman, but for women of all origins during this time.

Upon graduation, Ball had a choice between a scholarship from the University of California, Berkeley and one from the College of Hawaii (now the University of Hawaii). Ball decided to move to Hawaii for a master's degree in chemistry. During her postgraduate studies at the University of Hawaii, Ball examined the chemical structure and the principle of action of Piper methysticum (Kavapfeffer) for her master's thesis. In 1915, she became the first woman and person of African American descent to graduate from the College of Hawaii with a Masters degree. Alice Ball was also the first African American researcher and lecturer at the College of Hawaii Chemical Institute.

research

During her time as a researcher and lecturer at the College of Hawaii, Alice Ball analyzed chaulmoogra oil and its chemical properties. Chaulmoogra oil has been used against leprosy before . Ball discovered its ethyl ester form, in which it was water-soluble and could dissolve in the bloodstream. So it was injectable . Ball revolutionized his work and contributed to making leprosy curable.

Treatment of leprosy in the early 20th century

Leprosy was still an incurable disease in the early 20th century. Patients were then isolated in leper colonies. If a patient was diagnosed with leprosy in Hawaii between 1866 and 1942, he was imprisoned and permanently quarantined on the Hawaiian island of Molokai .

Chaulmoogra oil has previously been used in the treatment of leprosy with varying results. Each form of treatment had its problems. Chaulmoogra oil was first obtained directly from the seeds of the Chaulmoogra tree and has been used for external use in Eastern medicine since the 14th century. In this form, however, it was too tough to use effectively; when injected, however, it was extremely painful. Yet some hospitals tried to apply Chaulmoogra oil as an injection, although the tough consistency meant that it clumped under the skin and abscesses (blisters) caused what the patient's skin as bubble wrap her look. Ingesting the oil was also not a promising option because it had a bitter taste that usually made patients vomit when they tried to swallow it.

Dr. Harry T. Hollmann was a doctor at Kalihi Hospital in Hawaii during this time. He wasn't ready to give up the promising chaulmoogra oil as a treatment, despite the inconsistent results. He contacted Alice Ball, who was working on her master's thesis, The Chemical Constituents of Piper Methysticum , and suggested that she also do research on chaulmoogra oil.

Ball's discovery

At the age of 23, Ball developed a technique that could make the oil from the chaulmoogra tree seeds injectable and absorbable by the body. Their newly developed technique included the isolation of the ethyl ester components from the fatty acids in chaulmoogra oil . This isolation technique, later known as the "ball method," enabled the only chaulmoogra oil treatment for leprosy that was effective and that did not leave abscesses or a bitter taste. Ball was unable to publish her revolutionary research results due to her untimely death.

Arthur L. Dean, a chemist and the President of the University of Hawaii, went ahead and published the research and began making large quantities of the injectable chaulmoogra extract. Dean published the research, however, without acknowledging Ball's achievement, and called the technique the "Dean Method". It was not until 1922 that Hollmann mentioned Alice Ball's contribution in an article in a medical journal.

Due to her early death, Alice Ball no longer lived to see the success of her method. In 1918, two years after Alice Ball's death, a Hawaiian doctor reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association that a total of 78 patients were discharged from Kalihi Hospital by the health evaluation committee after being treated with injections of the chaulmoogra oil. No new patients were sent to the leper colony on Kalaupapa between 1919 and 1923. The isolated ethyl ester remained the preferred treatment for leprosy until sulfonamide drugs were developed in the 1940s.

Death and legacy

Alice Augusta Ball died on December 31, 1916 at the age of 24. She had gotten sick during her research and returned to Seattle for treatment a few months before her death. A 1917 newspaper article suggests the cause of death was chlorine poisoning , to which she was exposed while teaching in a laboratory. Ball was reported to demonstrate how to properly use a gas mask in preparation for a poison gas attack (it was the time of World War I ). Her cause of death is ultimately unknown, because her death certificate was changed to "cause of death tuberculosis ".

Alice Ball's work had a direct impact on the lives of lepers. As of 1866, for 80 years, eight thousand people diagnosed with leprosy were ripped from their homes in Hawaii alone. Because of Ball's research, patients in Hawaii were no longer exiled to Kalaupapa (Molokai). Instead, they could be treated in their home. Before that, patients were considered civilly dead if exiled because there was no cure.

Though her research career was short, Ball introduced a new treatment for leprosy that was used until the 1940s. For nearly ninety years, the University of Hawaii did not recognize her work. In 2000 Ball was honored by the university: She dedicated a plaque to Ball, which was placed on the university's only Chaulmoograbaum behind Bachman Hall. On the same day, Mazie Hirono , former lieutenant governor of Hawaii, declared February 29th "Alice Ball Day", which is now celebrated every four years. In 2007 the University of Hawaii Board of Directors honored Alice Ball with a Medal of Honor. In March 2016, the Hawaiʻi Magazine Ball ranked one of the most influential women in Hawaiian history.

In 2019, her name was added as one of three women to the original 23 names on the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine frieze listing people who have made public health and tropical medicine service (the other two women were Marie Curie and Florence Nightingale ).

literature

  • Jeannette Brown: African American Women Chemists. Oxford University Press, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-974288-2 .
  • Rachel Swaby: Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science - and the World. Broadway Books, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-553-44679-1 .
  • Paul Wermager: Alice A. Augusta Ball. In: ChemMatters  25, No. 1, February 2007, pp. 16-19.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Miles Jackson: Ball, Alice Augusta. In: BlackPast.org. Retrieved January 30, 2018 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Jeannette Brown: African American Women Chemists . Oxford University Press, New York 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-974288-2 , pp. 19-24.
  3. ^ A b c Miles M. Jackson: They Followed the Trade Winds: African Americans in Hawai'i (Social Process in Hawaii) . University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, Hawaii 2005, ISBN 978-0-8248-2965-0 , pp. 168-174 .
  4. ↑ a b c Sibřina Collins: Alice Augusta Ball: Chemical Drug Pioneer. In: UNDark: Truth, Beauty, Science. December 5, 2016, accessed January 31, 2018 .
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Paul Wermager, Carl Heltzel: Alice A. Augusta Ball: Young Chemist Gave Hope to Millions . In: Chemical Matters . tape 25 , no. 1 , February 2007, p. 16-19 .
  6. ↑ What is a daguerreotype? . In: Daguerreobase . Retrieved December 3, 2017.
  7. ↑ a b c d Rachel Swaby: Headstrong: 52 Women Who Changed Science - and the World . Broadway Books, New York 2015, ISBN 978-0-553-44679-1 , pp. 11-13.
  8. ↑ D. Molentia Guttman, Ernest Golden: African Americans in Hawaii . Arcadia Publishing, Charleston, South Carolina 2011, ISBN 978-0-7385-8116-3 , p. 15, (Accessed January 31, 2018).
  9. ↑ a b c d Beverly Mendheim: Lost and Found: Alice Augusta Ball, an Extraordinary Woman of Hawai'i Nei . In: Northwest Hawaii Times , September 2007. Retrieved January 31, 2018. 
  10. ^ A b c University of Hawaii at Manoa: Ball, Alice Augusta . Scholar Space. Accessed January 31, 2018.
  11. ↑ Esther Inglis-Arkell: We Had A Cure For Leprosy For Centuries, But Couldn't Get It To Work. In: io9. May 8, 2015, accessed January 31, 2018 .
  12. ↑ Rachel Ignotofsky: Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World . Ten Speed ​​Press, Berkeley 2016, ISBN 978-1-60774-976-9 , pp. 45 .
  13. ↑ Sam Maggs: Wonder Women: 25 Innovators, Inventors, and Trailblazers Who Changed History . Quirk Books, 2016, ISBN 978-1-59474-925-4 , pp. 36-39 .
  14. ↑ a b c Erika Cederlind: A tribute to Alice Bell: a Scientist whose Work with Leprosy was Overshadowed by a White Successor. In: The Daily of the University of Washington. February 29, 2008, accessed January 31, 2018 .
  15. ^ School of Pharmacy, University of Washington: UWSOP alumni legend Alice Ball, Class of 1914, solved leprosy therapy riddle. February 13, 2017, accessed January 31, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Matthew Dekneef: 14 extraordinary women in Hawaii history everyone should know. In: Hawai'i Magazine. March 9, 2016, accessed January 31, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Ball, Alice
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ball, Alice Augusta
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American chemist
BIRTH DATE July 24, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Seattle
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1916
PLACE OF DEATH Seattle