In the early twentieth century, a diagnosis of leprosy in Hawaii meant lifelong exile to the remote Kalaupapa peninsula. Alice Ball, a brilliant young Black chemist, cracked the chemical problem that had defeated doctors for decades, turning chaulmoogra oil into the first effective treatment for Hansen’s disease. Tragically, she died at twenty-four before she could publish her work, and a senior colleague later claimed credit for her discovery, nearly erasing her name from history.