author
James Moores Ball
1863–1929
Best known for his sweeping medical text Modern Ophthalmology and the vividly titled The Body Snatchers, this St. Louis physician brought a scholar’s curiosity to both eye medicine and medical history. He also built a notable collection of rare books, leaving behind a reputation as both a specialist and a serious bibliophile.
1 Audiobook
Andreas Vesalius, the Reformer of Anatomy
by James Moores Ball
About the author
Born in West Union, Iowa, James Moores Ball studied medicine at Iowa State University, earning his degree in 1884 before continuing postgraduate work in New York and Europe. He later became a prominent ophthalmologist in St. Louis and served as Professor of Ophthalmology at the St. Louis College of Physicians and Surgeons from 1894 to 1910.
Ball was admired not only as a physician but also as a writer and collector. During his lifetime he was especially known for Modern Ophthalmology, a widely used and repeatedly revised textbook, and he also wrote on the history of medicine, including The Body Snatchers. His interests reached beyond clinical practice into the stories, books, and people that shaped medical knowledge.
He was an avid bibliophile whose collection of rare and historic medical works became well known. That blend of practicing doctor, medical historian, and book collector gives his work a distinctive character: practical, learned, and deeply engaged with the long history of medicine.