Isabella Sarah Peyre Porcher Plantation Recipes and Prescriptions

The Isabella Sarah (Peyre) Porcher Prescription Book, circa 1834, consists of one volume of handwritten entries for prescriptions and other recipes. Among the prescriptions are those for the treatment of pleurisy, rheumatism, cough, earache, stomach and bowel complaints, fevers, dropsy, dysentery, and other complaints. Also included is a recipe for whitewash.

Isabella Sarah Peyre was born on October 3, 1803 in Berkeley County, South Carolina to Francis Peyre and May Peyre Walter Peyre. She married Dr. William Porcher, with whom she had seven children, including Francis Peyre Porcher, physician and author of Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests. Widowed with small children, Mrs. Porcher assumed control of her husband’s plantation Sarazins. In addition to managing the economy of this plantation, she also attended to the routine medical needs of its residents. A descendant of the botanist Thomas Walter, author of Flora Caroliniana, Mrs. Porcher employed local plants in the treatment of diseases. She died July 5, 1890.