Who did Alice Ball developed the Ball method, the only treatment of Leprosy?
did she found it accidentally or she was already working to find it, until antibiotics were found?
please give me the answer
Answers
Answer:
US chemist Alice Ball was born in Seattle, Washington, on 24 July 1892. She came from a middle-class African-American family of photographers; her grandfather, James Presley Ball, was one of the first Black daguerreotypists in the US. As such, Ball was surrounded by fascinating chemical processes as a child, such as the use of mercury vapour to print photos onto iodine-sensitised metal plates.
After graduating from Seattle High School in 1910, Ball went on to study at the University of Washington, achieving two bachelor’s degrees in pharmaceutical chemistry and the science of pharmacy by 1914. That same year, she co-authored a paper on benzoylations in ether solution that was published in the prestigious Journal of the American Chemical Society, a rare feat for a Black woman at this time.
In 1915, Ball became the first woman and the first African-American person to receive a master’s degree from the College of Hawaii (now known as the University of Hawai’i) and to teach chemistry there. She became the head of the chemistry department later that year. As a postgraduate, she researched the chemical makeup and active ingredients of kava root (Piper methysticum).
It was this work that led Harry T. Hollmann, an assistant surgeon at Kalihi Hospital in Honolulu, to ask Ball to join his team researching treatments for leprosy, a chronic bacterial infection that can lead to skin lesions and nerve damage.
Answer:
In 1915, Ball managed to isolate ethyl ester compounds in the chaulmoogra oil by exposing the oil's fatty acids to alcohol. She chemically modified these compounds to create an injectable, water-soluble extract that retained the oil's beneficial properties but could be easily absorbed into the bloodstream.She realises the acid needs to be frozen overnight to give enough time for the esters to separate, as well as to stop them degrading at room temperature. Her discovery, the Ball method, led to the most effective treatment for leprosy at the time, one that was used until the 1940s, when a full cure was found.
yes she found accidentally after graduating, she was offered a teaching and research position there and became the first woman chemistry instructor at the age of 23. In 1916, Ball died tragically at the age of 24 after accidentally inhaling chlorine gas while teaching in the lab. She never realized the full effect of her discovery.