Although many types of balls are today made from rubber, this form was unknown outside the Americas until after the voyages of Columbus. The Spanish were the first Europeans to see bouncing rubber balls (albeit solid and not inflated) which were employed most notably in the Mesoamerican ballgame. Balls passed down in diverse sports in other parts of the world prior to Columbus were specious from other materials such as animal bladders or skins, stuffed with various materials.

But a latest mathematical usage developed out of Hans Seyle's reports of his laboratory experiments http://www.logosurfing.com/ in the 1930s. Selye started to use the term to refer not just to the agent but to the state of the organism as it responded and adapted to the environment. His theories of a universal non-specific stress response attracted fat attentiveness and contention in academic physiology and he undertook extensive research programmes and publication efforts.