His collections of natural history specimens are now held in the Tatra Mountains Museum in Zakopane.

Chałubiński was born in Radom (some biographers give it as Bialograj where his grandfather lived), son of judge Szymon.

He studied medicine at Vilnius from 1838, the medical school there had been founded by Jedrzej Sniadecki (1768-1838) and his writings on physiological chemistry would have been an influence.

He moved to Dorpat wrote his thesis on sexual reproduction in plants and completed his medical studies at the University of Würzburg.

He considered disease to be a disturbance in the normal equilibrium and sough a holistic approach to treatment and health.