Raoul Heinrich Francé

Raoul Heinrich Francé (born May 20, 1874 in Vienna, Austria; died October 3, 1943 in Budapest, Hungary) was an Austro-Hungarian botanist, microbiologist as well as a natural and cultural philosopher and popularizer of science. His botanical author abbreviation is "Francé".
Biography.
Raoul Heinrich Francé (birth name: Rudolf Heinrich Franze) was born on 20 May 1874 in Altlerchenfeld (Vienna) and studied as a self-taught very early in analytical chemistry and "Mikrotechnik" (microscopy).
At 16 he was the youngest member of the Royal Hungarian scientific society, as its deputy magazine editor, he worked from 1893 to 1898.
From 1897 Francé studied biology for eight semesters and became a student under the Hungarian protozoa scientist (Protozoenforscher) Geza Entz.
During this time he undertook fourteen botanical expeditions.
In 1898 he was appointed Deputy Head of the Institute of Plant Protection of Agricultural Academy in Hungarian-Altenburg.
Here he published his first natural philosophical work.
Thereupon Francé received in 1902 the invitation to come to Munich.
In 1906 he founded the "Deutsche Mikrologische Gesellschaft" (German micrological Company) and its institution over which he presided as director.
He was editor of this company and co-founder of the journal "Mikrokosmos" (1907).
He was editor of other periodicals, such as "Jahrbuch für Mikroskopiker" and "Mikrologische Bibliothek".
In 1906 Francé initiated the eight-volume monumental work "Das Leben der Pflanze" ("The Life of Plants"), whose first four volumes (1906–1910) are from his own pen.
The publishing company advertised this book as "Pflanzen-Brehm" ("Plant-Brehm", after the famous book "Brehms Tierleben").
In 1922, he published a popular version of the scientific evidence on the soil biota in a booklet "Das Leben im Ackerboden" (Life in the soil).
Throughout his busy life he wrote 60 books and a variety of popular science articles and writings. 
Francé's "Germs of Mind in Plants" was his only book translated into English by A. M Simons. The book revolted against mechanistic botany and argued that plants are like humans because they have a sense life and purpose. Francé was not satisfied with the position held by neuropsychology but he did not claim that plants can feel pain or have a soul. It was negatively reviewed as a philosophical, not a scientific work.
In the "Walter Seifert Verlag" he was the editor of the journal "Telos – Halbmonatsschrift für Arbeit und Erfolg") ("Telos – Fortnightly Magazine for Work and Success"). As a renowned graphic artist Francé developed the technique of "feather stitch" (Federstich), which is rooted in the copper engraving (Kupferstich).
Stages of his life are Dinkelsbühl, Wroclaw, Salzburg, Munich and Dubrovnik-Ragusa. In his life he wrote many books in which he anticipated many modern ecological ideas. Francé died of leukemia in 1943 in Budapest. He is buried together with his wife in Oberalm, Austria.
Legacy.
In 1898, botanist Ernst Lemmermann published "Franceia", which is a genus of green algae belonging to the family Oocystaceae and named in Raoul Heinrich Francé's honour.
Organic farming is based in part on the findings by Francé, which were published in his books "Das Edaphon" (:wikt:edaphon, any animal or plant found in soil), 1913, and "Das Leben im Ackerboden", 1922, (Life in the soil) and a series of articles in the journal "Mikrokosmos" made available for a broad public. But this scientific source is usually concealed.
His wife "Annie Francé-Harrar" Annie Francé-Harrar, a well-known biologist and author, worked many years with him and continued after his death in 1943 parts of his scientific work.
Today Raoul H. Francé is rediscovered as the founder of "Biotechnik" (Now called "Bionics"). His books "Das Edaphon" and "Das Leben im Ackerboden" were again published as reprints since 1959.
Many of his then and now progressive ideas only gained its assessment at the end of the 20th century.
In Munich and Dinkelsbühl a street bears his name.