Less than a year after making a breakthrough toward the treatment of Hansen's disease in 1915, black chemist Alice Augusta Ball fell ill and died before getting a chance to publish her research.

Her discovery led to one of the first effective treatments of Hansen's disease, or leprosy, that became standard medical practice for nearly two decades, said Paul Wermager, head of science and technology references at Hamilton Library at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, who has researched and written articles on Ball.

"She was just starting to become known," Wermager said. "She had so much potential."

Ball, who grew up in an upper-middle-class family in Seattle, first came to Hawai'i as an eighth-grader in 1903 and attended Central Grammar School, now Central Middle School.

In the 1965 book "The Hawaii I Remember," classmate John Scott Boyd Pratt reflected: "At that time, there were very few Negroes in Hawai'i, and it was unusual to have two in my eighth grade. Alice Ball was brilliant, and later went far in chemistry."

She and her family returned to Seattle a year later, but she chose Hawai'i for graduate studies, becoming the first woman and the first black to earn a master's degree from UH.

Ball quickly made a name for herself. Surgeon and Hansen's disease researcher Dr. Harry Hollmann tapped her to investigate the chemicals in chaulmoogra tree oil, which was believed to be effective in the treatment of the disease.

Ball, who didn't keep a record of her everyday dealings, left behind little insight into the racial and gender discrimination she faced, said Wermager. But we do know she broke barriers as a woman and a black during the national climate of segregation, he said.

In 2000, UH placed a memorial plaque honoring Ball at the base of a chaulmooga tree on the Manoa campus. She received a posthumous Regent Medal of Distinction in December.

Reach Loren Moreno at lmoreno@honoluluadvertiser.com.