At 23, chemist Alice Ball transformed an old remedy into a treatment patients could receive by injection.
In Hawai‘i, Ball worked on chaulmoogra oil, used against Hansen's disease but difficult to apply effectively. She developed a way to process the oil into an injectable form. It became the most effective treatment until other medicines arrived in the 1940s—not a cure, but a source of hope.
Ball died in 1916, aged 24, before she could publish the findings. Another chemist continued the work, and her contribution was obscured for years. Public health officer Harry Hollmann later credited her method in print, helping restore her name to the history of the treatment. She was also the first woman and African American woman to earn a master's degree at the College of Hawai‘i.
A scientific result can change lives; giving its maker credit can take much longer.