Career
He was the younger brother of bryologist Philipp Bruch (1781–1847). Up until 1855, he worked as a notary in Mainz. He was the author of numerous articles in the journals Isis and Journal für Ornithologie.
He was a catalyst towards the establishment of the Rheinische Naturforschende Gesellschaft (1834).
In 1828, he proposed a system of trinomial nomenclature for species, in contrast to the binomial system of Carolus Linnaeus. The following are a list of ornithological species described by Bruch:
Dalmatian pelican, (Pelecanus crispus), 1832
Hartlaub"s gull, (Chroicocephalus hartlaubii), 1853
Red-legged kittiwake, (Rissa brevirostris), 1853
Sooty gull (Ichthyaetus hemprichii), 1853.