Gustav von Bunge

Gustav Piers Alexander von Bunge (19 January 1844 – 5 November 1920) was a Baltic-German physiologist known for his work in the field of vitamins.

Biography 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. Alcoholic Poisoning and Degeneration, 1905. "Text-book of organic chemistry for medical students", 1907.