46 



FRANCIS PEYRE PORCHER. 



Francis Peyre Porcher, physician and botanist, was 

 born in St. John's, Berkeley Parish, Charleston, S. C, 

 December 14, 1825. He was descended from Isaac 

 Porcher, a French Huguenot, who emigrated from 

 France at the time of the persecution of the Huguenots 

 by the Catholic Church as a result of the revocation of 

 the Edict of Nantes by the harsh and impolitic act of 

 Louis XIV. His preparatory training was received at 

 the Mount Zion Academy, and in 1844 he was graduated 

 from the South Carolina College with the degree of 

 A. B. From the Medical College of South Carolina at 

 Charleston, he was graduated in 1847 with the degree 

 of M. D., taking the first honor place in a class of 

 seventy-six medical students. His thesis, which was 

 published by the College faculty, was entitled "A 

 Medico-Botanical Catalogue of the Plants and Ferns 

 of St. John's, Berkeley, South Carolina." Dr. Porcher 

 afterward spent two years in attendance upon the 

 medical schools in Paris, also passing some time in 

 Florence, Italy, where he acquired a knowledge of the 

 Italian language. 



Dr. Porcher returned to Charleston, S. C, and as- 

 sisted in establishing the Charleston Preparatory Medi- 

 cal School, and was subsequently elected professor in 

 the chairs of clinical medicine and of materia medica 

 and therapeutics in the Medical College of the State. 

 He was for five years one of the editors of the "Charles- 

 ton Medical Journal and Review," and also assisted in 

 editing and publishing four volumes after the War Be- 

 tween the States. He prepared by order of the Sur- 

 geon-General of the Confederate States a volume of 

 over 700 pages, entitled "The Resources of the South- 

 ern Fields and Forests." This was essentially a medi- 

 cal l^otany of the Confederate States. The book was 



