[Illustration] Porfirio Parra was born in the State of Chihuahua. In 1869, when he was scarcely fourteen years of age, he was voted a sum of money by the State Legislature, to take him to the City of Mexico for purposes of study. From 1870 to 1872, he attended the _Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_ (National Preparatory School), where he stood first in his classes and where his conduct was so exemplary, as to gain him state aid until the time of his graduation. In 1871, entering the competition for the Professorship of History in the Girls High School, he gained the second grade, although three eminent historians were among the contestants. Entering the _Escuela Nacional de Medicina_ (National Medical School), in 1873, he maintained high rank there and took his degree in February, 1878. In March of that year, he was appointed Professor of Logic in the _Escuela Nacional Preparatoria_. In 1879, by competition, he received the Professorship of Physiology in the National School of Medicine, with which he has been associated in some capacity ever since. In 1880, by competition, he became Surgeon and Physician of the Juarez Hospital. In 1886, after a brilliant examination, he became a member of the _Academia de Medicina de México_ (Academy of Medicine). In the _Escuela Nacional de Agricultura y Veterinaria_ (National Agricultural and Veterinary School), he has held chairs of mathematics and zootechnology. An alternate Deputy in 1882, he was in 1898 elected Deputy of the Federal Congress, and has been re-elected until the present time. He was made chairman of the House Committee on Public Instruction. In 1902 he was named Secretary of the Upper Council of Education. Dr. Parra has participated, officially, in several of the most important medical congresses held in Europe during recent years, sometimes as a delegate from his native State of Chihuahua, at others as delegate from the Mexican nation. In 1892, he was elected a member of the Mexican Academy. Dr. Parra has written both in poetry and prose. Most of what he writes is in scientific lines. Even in poetry he is a scientist, and in a volume of his poems, we find odes to the mathematics and to medicine, a sonnet to a skull, and poems on the Death of Pasteur, Night, Water. Of very great importance is his _Nueva Sistema de Logica, inductiva y deductiva_ (New System of Logic, Inductive and Deductive). He has written one novel, _Pacotillas_, in which the life of the medical student is depicted. It is from this work that we have drawn our selections.