PORCHER, Francis Peyre, physician, born in St. John's, Berkeley, South Carolina, 14 December, 1825. He was graduated at South Carolina college in 1844 and at the Medical college of the state of South Carolina in 1847, where he now holds the chair of materia medica and therapeutics. On graduating he settled in Charleston, where he has since continued in the active practice of his profession, also holding the appointments of surgeon and physician to the marine and city hospitals. During the civil war he was surgeon in charge of Confederate hospitals at Norfolk and Petersburg, Virginia Dr. Porcher was president of the South Carolina medical association in 1872, and, besides holding memberships in other societies, is an associate fellow of the Philadelphia college of physicians. He was one of the editors of the "Charleston Medical Journal and Review," having charge of the publication of five volumes of the first series (1850-'5), and more recently of four volumes of the second series (1873-'6). Dr. Porcher was an enthusiastic botanist and has devoted considerable attention to that subject. Besides numerous fugitive contributions to the medical journals, and articles in medical works, he has published "A Medico-Botanical Catalogue of the Plants and Ferns of St. John's, Berkeley, South Carolina" (Charleston, 1847); " A Sketch of the Medical Botany of South Carolina" (Philadelphia, 1849); "The Medicinal, Poisonous, and Dietetic Properties of the Cryptogamic Plants of the United States" (New York, 1854); " Illustrations of Disease with the Microscope, and Clinical Investigations aided by the Microscope and by Chemical Reagents" (Charleston, 1861); and " Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural," published by order of the surgeon-general of the Confederate states (Richmond, 1863 ; new and revised ed., Charleston, 1869).