Bunge was born on 19 January 1844 in Dorpat,
Russian Empire (now
Tartu, Estonia), the son of
Alexander von Bunge, a botanist, and Elisabeth Karolina von
Pistohlkors. He studied chemistry and mathematics at the
Imperial University of Dorpat, where he obtained a doctorate and
habilitation in
physiology in 1874. Bunge was the author of treatises on
alcoholic spirits, of which he denounced as a "threat to health and heredity". His name is associated with "Bunge's rule", a nutritional law based on his research of human and animal milk – "that nutrients in milk are proportional to the growth of the offspring". However, Bunge rejected the entire idea of
vitamins and vitamin deficiencies; he opposed the doctoral dissertation of
Nikolai Lunin regarding
Vitamin C and
scurvy. He died on 5 November 1920 in
Basel, aged 76. == Selected publications ==