Toronto Etsy Street Team
For Toronto area Lovers and Makers of all things DIY, handmade, crafty or unique. This page is for all the latest info for the team and fans!
The Toronto Etsy Street Team is a collective of local Toronto Etsy sellers, purveryors of handmade items, art and craft supplies, and vintage items. We're a team of artists, artisans, crafters, designers, makers of all sorts and vintage savvy collectors.
29/02/2024
For pharmaceutical Alice Ball (1892-1916) who developed 1st effective treatment for . Though her life was cut tragically short, her research saved 1000s from exile & painful, ineffective lifelong treatment for leprosy, & she was a trailblazer for women & Black scientists.
Ball studied at UW earning a BSc & 2nd degree in pharmacy 2 years later. She published “Benzoylations in Ether Solution,” in the prestigious J Am Chem Soc with her instructor. She was offered many scholarships & opted to return to Hawaii to pursue her chemistry MSc investigating the active principle of Piper methysticum. She was both 1st woman & 1st Black graduate with a master’s degree from U Hawai’i. She became the 1st Black chemistry prof at the school.
Dr. Harry T. Hollmann of Kalihi Hospital in Hawai’i & acting director of Kalihi leprosy clinic, was unsatisfied with using chaulmoogra oil in its natural form to treat patients & wanted to isolate the active ingredients. He recruited Ball to help. Within a year, she was able to do what all had been unable to do for centuries. She isolated the active ingredients & converted them to a form which could be circulated in the body. This breakthrough was so significant, she was offered an instructor position.
Tragically, Ball became ill during her research & returned to Seattle for treatment. She may have been exposed to chlorine gas while demonstrating the use of a gas mask in case of attack (as WWI was raging), but the cause of her death is unknown & she had yet to publish.
The chemist & president of U Hawaii, Arthur L. Dean completed & published her study -calling it the “Dean Method”! Dr. Hollmann objected & documented how the technique should be the “Ball Method”. Despite Hollmann’s efforts Ball’s achievements did not receive much recognition until historians highlighted her work in the 70s. Almost 90 years after her discovery, the U Hawaii finally recognized her work with a plaque on the school’s lone chaulmoogra tree in 2000, & the Lieutenant Governor declared February 29 “Alice Ball Day,” now celebrated every 4 years. https://instagr.am/p/C37qGI9L5Jh/