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Alice Ball, a 23-year-old chemist in Hawaii, found in 1915 how to turn chaulmoogra oil, a traditional remedy, into an injectable medicine for leprosy, also called Hansen's disease. Her method was the most effective treatment until the 1940s.

Alice Ball

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Oil from the seeds of the chaulmoogra tree had long been used against leprosy in India and elsewhere in Asia, but it was hard to take: swallowed, it caused nausea, and injected, it formed painful blisters under the skin. Ball, the first woman and first Black American to earn a master's degree at the College of Hawaii, took up the problem at the request of the surgeon Harry Hollmann. She turned the oil's fatty acids into ethyl esters, a form that could be injected and absorbed by the body. She died in December 1916, aged 24, before she could publish. The college president, Arthur Dean, carried on the work without crediting her; Hollmann later published an account naming it the 'Ball method'. Dapsone and related drugs replaced it in the 1940s.

Türkçe oku
Hawaii'de çalışan 23 yaşındaki kimyager Alice Ball, 1915'te geleneksel bir ilaç olan chaulmoogra yağını, cüzama (Hansen hastalığı) karşı iğneyle verilebilen bir ilaca dönüştürmenin yolunu buldu. Yöntemi 1940'lara kadar cüzama karşı en etkili tedavi olarak kaldı.

Chaulmoogra ağacının tohumlarından elde edilen yağ, Hindistan'da ve Asya'nın başka yerlerinde uzun zamandır cüzama karşı kullanılıyordu; ama kullanması zordu: içilince bulantı yapıyor, iğneyle verilince deri altında acı veren kabarcıklar oluşturuyordu. Hawaii Koleji'nde yüksek lisans derecesi alan ilk kadın ve ilk Siyah Amerikalı olan Ball, cerrah Harry Hollmann'ın isteği üzerine bu soruna eğildi. Yağdaki yağ asitlerini, iğneyle verilebilen ve vücudun emebildiği etil esterlere dönüştürdü. Aralık 1916'da, 24 yaşında, çalışmasını yayımlayamadan öldü. Kolejin başkanı Arthur Dean çalışmayı onun adını anmadan sürdürdü; Hollmann ise daha sonra yöntemi “Ball yöntemi” diye anarak yayımladı. 1940'larda yerini dapson ve benzeri ilaçlar aldı.

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