[4] Richet spent a period of time as an intern at the Salpêtrière hospital in Paris, where he observed Jean-Martin Charcot's work with then so called "hysterical" patients.

[citation needed] In 1887, Richet became professor of physiology at the Collège de France investigating a variety of subjects such as neurochemistry, digestion, thermoregulation in homeothermic animals, and breathing.

Starting in 1902, pacifist societies began to meet at a National Peace Congress, often with several hundred attendees.

[9] On board Albert's ship, Princesse Alice II, they extracted a toxin (which they called a hypnotoxin) that is produced by cnidarians such as Portuguese man o' war[10] and sea anemone (Actinia sulcata).

Richet continued to study the phenomenon of anaphylaxis, and in 1913 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work.

He kept in touch with renowned occultists and spiritualists of his time such as Albert von Schrenck-Notzing, Frederic William Henry Myers and Gabriel Delanne.

[citation needed] In 1919, Richet became honorary chairman of the Institut Métapsychique International in Paris, and, in 1930, its full-time president.

[21] He wrote: "It has been shown that as regards subjective metapsychics the simplest and most rational explanation is to suppose the existence of a faculty of supernormal cognition ... setting in motion the human intelligence by certain vibrations that do not move the normal senses.

[6] He investigated and studied various mediums, such as Eva Carrière, William Eglinton, Pascal Forthuny, Stefan Ossowiecki, Leonora Piper and Raphael Schermann.

[27] Richet was also fooled into believing that Joaquin María Argamasilla, known as the "Spaniard with X-ray Eyes", had genuine psychic powers.

[30] The historian Ruth Brandon criticized Richet as credulous when it came to psychical research, pointing to "his will to believe, and his disinclination to accept any unpalatably contrary indications".