ABSTRACT
The major event during Charles Richet's years in medical school was the interruption caused by the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. It affected him deeply and reinforced the pacifistic teachings of his grandfather. Richet's interest in Latin was soon supplemented by a powerful preoccupation with psychic phenomena, including hypnotism. Richet's next step was to select a field of study. Recalling his enjoyment of the zoology courses in the Faculte des Sciences taught by Lacaze Duthiers and Milne Edwards he chose to work on the comparative physiology of muscular contraction in invertebrates. Richet began his muscle project pretty much on his own, beginning with the musculature of the tail and pincers of the crayfish. Richet's study of the crayfish was interrupted for a time when the surgeon, Aristide Auguste Stanislas Verneuil, a former assistant to Richet's father, presented him an unusual opportunity to study the function of the stomach in man.
