Inventors

Patent Invention by King David Kalakaua in 1875. Drawing of new fish ram and torpedo-proof vessel.

Hawai'i's King David Kalakaua was a scientist, inventor and Renaissance man. The King invented an improved double screw and improved bottle stopper in 1872. He invented a new fish ram and a torpedo-proof vessel in 1875.  Both inventions by the King received U.S. Patents. 

Alice Ball was a black woman who grew up in Seattle and Hawaii. She attended the University of Hawaii and was the first woman to earn a master's degree in chemistry. She stayed on the UH chemistry faculty to teach and research. In 1915, at the age of 23, she invented a treatment for leprosy using oil extracted from the chaulmoogra tree. The following year, after a laboratory accident, Alice Ball died at 24. 

Leprosy, or Hansen's disease, was a disfiguring disease that slowly damages the skin and nervous system. It is an ancient disease mentioned in the Bible.  Alice Ball, a young chemistry instructor at the University of Hawaii, was the first to reconfigure an oil extract from the chaulmoogra tree for the treatment of leprosy. The treatment she developed was effective enough that 78 patients recovered and were sent home from the leper colony at Kalaupapa on Moloka‘i.

The Ball Method was used to medically treat leprosy cases around the world. It remained the most effective treatment until the 1940s.