His education was supported by the Danish crown and his eventual appointment as royal physician conferred status and authority to his work and opinions.
Daniel Sennert, a professor at Wittenberg wrote in 1619 that most chemical physicians followed the lead of Severinus and even referred to a “Severinian School” of medical theory, which was based on the philosophy of Paracelsus.
The cathedral at Ribe was administered by some of the greatest humanist reformers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, including Hans Tausen, Peder Hegelund, and Jens Dinesen Jersin providing Severinus with the best education available in Denmark at the time.
Philosophy at the University of Copenhagen comprised three branches: logic (grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric), physics (mathematics, physiology, and metaphysics), and ethics.
[3]: 27 In 1562, Severinus left Copenhagen and headed to France to begin medical studies, but returned a year later due to a lack of funding.
In 1563 King Frederick II offered Severinus a canonry position as a doctor in Viborg, which was probably used to fund a stipend for three years of medical studies.
Severinus was promoted to the level of master in 1564 under the direction of Nicolaus Laurentius Scavenius, who held the chair in mathematics and later physics at the University of Copenhagen.
For the last ten years of his life, Severinus enjoyed relative freedom from official duties, yet failed to produce any additional writings since his influential work, Idea medicinæ philosophicæ in 1571.
While these writings were rather obscure, Severinus persisted in understanding the concepts through his own empirical experiments and by applying the teachings of ancient Greeks in matters of theory and observation.
[3]: 29 Severinus increasingly found traditional Aristotelian and Galenic medical methods unsatisfactory and likewise began to embrace chemistry and the teachings of Paracelsus to create efficacious drugs.
He theorized that seeds of disease (semina morborum) are foreign matter in a healthy body and take root, grow, and disrupt the normally orderly process of bodily functions.