ALICE BALL The Chemist Who Outwitted Leprosy

Introduction: A Name Almost Lost

Earned a degree in chemistry from the College of Hawaii, and she died only months after her

breakthrough, at the age of twenty-four. For decades afterward, credit for her discovery went to

someone else. It would take nearly a century for her story to be told in full.

This short book traces that story: a childhood shaped by a family of pioneering photographers, a

rigorous scientific education earned in two states, a discovery that changed thousands of lives, and

the long, quiet effort to give a brilliant young scientist the recognition she was denied in her lifetime.