Hermann Senator (December 6, 1834 – July 14, 1911) was a German internist who was a native of Gnesen in the Prussian Province of Posen (now Gniezno, Wielkopolska, Poland).
Of Jewish descent, he studied medicine in Berlin, where he received his medical doctorate in 1857.
Among his instructors in Berlin were Johannes Peter Müller (1801-1858), Johann Lukas Schönlein (1793-1864) and Ludwig Traube (1818-1876).
Beginning in 1872 he was co-editor of "Centralblatt für die medizinischen Wissenschaften".
Hermann Senator made several contributions in internal medicine, in particular, involving research in the field of nephrology.
He was the author of influential works associated with diabetes and albuminuria, and is credited with disproving the once held belief that albuminuria was always a sign of primary kidney disease.
His treatise on diseases of the kidneys, "Die Erkrankungen der Nieren", was included in Nothnagel's textbook of special pathology and therapy.
Senator was also the author of a significant study on fevers, titled "Untersuchungen über den fieberhaften Process und seine Behandlung" (Investigations of the febrile process and its treatment).
In 1868 he introduced his theory of "autointoxication", of which he speculated that "self-infection" originating in the intestines could be a source of disease elsewhere in the human body.
He also believed that autointoxication could be the root cause of certain mental disorders.
Author: Unknown Source: Bibergeil X (1904) Festschrift für H. Senator Hirschwald, Berlin reprinted in: Hermann Senator (1834–1911) Ein klinischer Universalist mit speziellem Interesse für die Rheumatologie. Z Rheumatol 2008 License: CC-PD-Mark PD Old