Peter Ball (physician)
Encyclopedia
Peter Ball or Balle, M.D. (died 1675), was an English physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

.

Ball was the third son of Sir Peter Ball
Peter Ball (MP)
Sir Peter Ball was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1626 and 1640. He was attorney general to Queen Henrietta Maria....

 of Mamhead
Mamhead
Mamhead is a rural village and civil parish near Dawlish and Kenton in Devon, South West England, in the Teignbridge local authority area.On high ground on the Haldon Hills, dense woodlands open out into views of the coast and the estuary of the River Exe....

 Devon and his wife Anne Cooke, daughter of William Cooke
William Cooke (of Highnam)
Sir William Cooke was an English landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1597 and 1614....

. In 1652 he was admitted to the Middle Temple, London and called to the bar in 1657. Peter was entered as a medical student at Leyden on 13 January 1659, at the age of 20, but went on to Padua
Padua
Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

, where he took the degree of doctor of philosophy and physic with the highest distinction on 30 December 1660. To celebrate the occasion verses in Latin, Italian, and English were published at Padua, in which Ball, by a somewhat violent twist of his Latinised names, Petrus Bule, is made to figure as 'alter Phœbus.'

Ball was admitted an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians
Royal College of Physicians
The Royal College of Physicians of London was founded in 1518 as the College of Physicians by royal charter of King Henry VIII in 1518 - the first medical institution in England to receive a royal charter...

 in December 1664. He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...

, one of the council in 1666, and in the following year was placed on the committee to organise the cataloguing of the library and manuscripts of Arundel House
Arundel House
Arundel House was a town-house or palace located between the Strand and the Thames, near St Clement Danes.It was originally the town house of the Bishops of Bath and Wells, during the Middle Ages. In 1539 it was given to William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton...

, which had been presented to the society by Henry Howard
Henry Howard
-Nobles and politicians:*Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey , English aristocrat and poet*Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton , son of the Earl of Surrey*Henry Howard, 2nd Earl of Norfolk *Henry Howard, 5th Earl of Suffolk...

, Esq., afterwards Duke of Norfolk.

While at Mamhead in October 1665, Ball and his elder brother William
William Ball (astronomer)
William Ball was an English astronomer. He was one of the founding Fellows of the Royal Society. He was appointed the Society's first treasurer on 28 November 1660, and served until 1663....

 observed the Rings of Saturn
Rings of Saturn
The rings of Saturn are the most extensive planetary ring system of any planet in the Solar System. They consist of countless small particles, ranging in size from micrometres to metres, that form clumps that in turn orbit about Saturn...

 as a band (or "fascia") upon the planet when they had apparently disappeared from being seen edge-on from Earth.

Ball died in July 1675 and was buried on 20 July in Temple Church
Temple Church
The Temple Church is a late-12th-century church in London located between Fleet Street and the River Thames, built for and by the Knights Templar as their English headquarters. In modern times, two Inns of Court both use the church. It is famous for its effigy tombs and for being a round church...

.
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