He studied botany at Tübingen under Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566). He then travelled with Conrad Gessner, after which he started a practise of medicine at Basel, where he was elected Professor of Rhetoric in 1566. Four years later he was invited to become physician to Duke Frederick I of Württemberg at Montbéliard, where he remained until his death. He devoted himself chiefly to botany. His great work, Historia plantarum universalis, a compilation of all that was then known about botany, was incomplete at his death, but was published at Yverdon in 1650-1651.
Bauhin nurtured several botanic gardens and also collected plants during his travels. In 1591, he published a list of plants named after saints called De Plantis a Divis Sanctisve Nomen Habentibus.
