171 Ashley Ave Suite 419, MSC 403, Charleston, SC 29425, United States
Francis Peyre Porcher graduated from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina (now Medical University of South Carolina) in 1847, taking first honors in a class of seventy-six.
Gallery of Francis Porcher
Columbia, SC 29208, United States
Francis Peyre Porcher went to the South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina), graduating with the degree of A. B. in 1844.
Gallery of Francis Porcher
519 Fayetteville St, Durham, NC 27707, United States
Francis received his preparatory education at Mount Zion Academy (now Mount Zion Christian Academy).
171 Ashley Ave Suite 419, MSC 403, Charleston, SC 29425, United States
Francis Peyre Porcher graduated from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina (now Medical University of South Carolina) in 1847, taking first honors in a class of seventy-six.
Resources Of The Southern Fields And Forests, Medical, Economical, And Agricultural: Being Also A Medical Botany Of The Confederate States; With ... Properties Of The Trees, Plants And Shrubs
(This book about the medical, economical and agricultural ...)
This book about the medical, economical and agricultural aspects of the botany of the southern states. Francis Porcher was given the task to write this book by the Confederate States Surgeon General and it was originally published in 1863 in the Confederate States of America. It also includes the useful properties of trees, plants, and shrubs.
Francis Peyre Porcher was an American physician and botanist. He volunteered as a surgeon for the Confederate army in 1861, serving first in an army hospital in Norfolk, Virginia, and later in Petersburg, Virginia.
Background
Francis Peyre Porcher was born on December 14, 1825, at Berkeley County, South Carolina, United States. He was the son of Dr. William Porcher and his wife, Isabella Sarah Peyre. His ancestor, Isaac Porcher, was one of the early group of Huguenot immigrants to South Carolina; his mother's grandfather, Thomas Walter, was a famous English botanist.
Porcher first acquired an interest in intellectual pursuits from his mother, who had a reputation as an "accomplished botanist." According to family recollections, she gave Porcher "an accurate knowledge of the medicinal properties of the common plants which grew on her plantations". After Porcher’s father died in 1833, Isabella assumed responsibility for running the plantation and carried out her husband’s wishes that their six children receive formal schooling.
Education
Francis received his preparatory education at Mount Zion Academy (now Mount Zion Christian Academy), whence he went to the South Carolina College (now University of South Carolina), graduating with the degree of A. B. in 1844. He graduated from the Medical College of the State of South Carolina (now Medical University of South Carolina) in 1847, taking first honors in a class of seventy-six. His thesis, which was published by the College, bore the title, A Medico-Botanical Catalogue of the Plants and Ferns of St. John's, Berkeley. He completed his medical education with two years' study in Paris followed by some months in Italy.
Francis Peyre Porcher entered practice and in 1852 with Dr. E. Belin Flagg opened the Charleston Preparatory Medical School of the Medical College and lectured on materia medica and therapeutics.
During his long affiliation with the Medical College (now Medical University of South Carolina), Porcher served as professor of clinical medicine and chair of materia medica, which position he held from 1874 to 1891. He also served as attending physician at the Marine Hospital in Charleston from 1855 to 1860. Porcher was the editor of the Charleston Medical Journal and Review and served as president of the South Carolina Medical Association (1871), the Medical Society of South Carolina (1874), and as vice-president of the American Medical Association (1880). With fellow Medical College alumnus Julian J. Chisolm (1830-1903), Porcher opened a hospital specifically for the care of plantation slaves.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, Porcher joined the Confederate Army as a surgeon to South Carolina’s Holcombe Legion and was then transferred to the Naval Hospital at Norfolk, Virginia in March 1862. He finished his Confederate service in the South Carolina Hospital at Petersburg, Virginia.
When the war ended, Porcher returned to Charleston and resumed his academic positions at the Medical College. He was on the staff of the City Hospital from 1866 to 1887 and again served a three-year term as an editor for the Charleston Medical Journal and Review. As his professional career thrived, he remained a prolific contributor to the medical literature and wrote on a variety of topics including yellow fever, diseases of the heart, typhoid, and malaria.
Achievements
Francis Peyre Porcher helped establish the Charleston Preparatory Medical School; served for many years on the Board of Health, was a co-founder of the hospital for negroes. He was a prolific contributor to the medical journals of his time, the author of The Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests. Besides, he was considered an authority on diseases of the heart and chest and contributed a paper on the differential diagnosis of organic valvular diseases to A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences.
Francis was a member of the South Carolina Medical Association, Elliott Society of Natural History; the American Medical Association, Association of American Physicians.
Connections
Porcher was twice married, first to Virginia Leigh, of Richmond, Virginia, daughter of Benjamin Watkins Leigh. He had five children by his first wife. His second wife was Margaret Ward of Georgetown, South Carolina. Francis had four by Margaret.
