Her name had disappeared behind a treatment she had made possible.

Chaulmoogra oil was known long before Alice Ball. The difficulty was therefore not simply to discover a plant, but to draw from it a usable preparation. After graduating in chemistry from Hawaiii in 1915, the young researcher worked on derivatives of this oil for the treatment of Hansen’s disease.

Its process facilitates their administration by injection. Ball died, however, in 1916, at the age of 24, before publishing his results. His work is then assigned to a head of the college. Dr. Harry Hollmann then helped return credit for the discovery in a 1922 publication.

History deserves two precautions. This is a historical advance in formulation, not the invention of the medicinal plant. And the treatment was not a universal cure: a retrospective of the university talks about varying results before the arrival of more effective drugs. Restoring Ball’s name doesn’t require turning his real contribution into a miracle.