Though he was highly thought of in his own day and for many years thereafter, one hears today little of Daniel Sennert. He was born in Breslau in 1572. His father, a shoemaker, died when Daniel was 13, and his mother had a hard time sending him to the University of Wittenberg, where he was sent in 1593. In 1597, he finished his philosophical studies and began the study of medicine, which he pursued later at Leipzig, Jena, Frankfurt-am-Oder and Berlin. He received his degree at Wittenberg in 1601. He intended to practice in his native town, but Jessenius, the professor of medicine, retired in his favor, and from 1602 until his death from plague in 1637 he not only occupied the chair of medicine but was repeatedly dean of the medical school and rector of the university.
He was made one of the physicians of George, Elector of Saxony,