Richard Wunsch was born in Silesia in 1869. He studied medicine, was an assistant to Rudolf Virchow and in 1901 met the physician Erwin Baelz, who taught and practiced in Japan. Bälz got Wunsch the position of personal physician to the Korean Emperor Kojong. He rendered outstanding services in Korea, particularly in the fight against cholera. In 1905, he moved from Seoul to Tōkyō to succeed Bälz, but only found employment there as a doctor at the British embassy and therefore accepted a position in the German colony of Qingdao in 1908. He died there of scrub typhus in 1911.

The medical cutlery that Richard Wunsch used at the Korean imperial court was registered as a cultural treasure and exhibited at the Tŏksu Palace in Seoul in 2011.