51�Թ�

He contacted Ball and asked if she would tackle another complicated puzzle: chaulmoogra’s mystifying chemistry.

While she was an instructor at the College of Hawaii in 1915, Ball invented a process for producing an anti-leprosy drug from the tropical chaulmoogra tree.

By all accounts, Ball worked arduously, juggling teaching during day and the chaulmoogra problem during every moment of her free time.

Instead of giving raw chaulmoogra oil in doses, as had been the custom for centuries, he gave it by injection to the muscles.

The report, by Harry Hollmann, extolled the therapeutic potential of chaulmoogra oil, originally a folk remedy for leprosy with ancient roots in India and China.