Next in importance to the discoveries of Puységur were those of Dr. Pétetin, of Lyons. His general position is much the same as that of Puységur; for "animal magnetism," he substituted an "animal electricity," (such was the title of his posthumous volume, 1808); and he claimed to have found that the intervention of poor electric conductors opposed the appearance of certain of the phenomena of the somnambulic state. In a work published in 1787, he described a new condition characterized by a fixed rigidity of the limbs, to which he gave the name (still applied to it) of "catalepsy," and which continues to be one of the characteristic modifications artificially produced by hypnotization. Dr. Pétetin describes how his subject, when magnetized, became insensible to external stimuli, how her pulse slackened, her muscles became fixed, and how she would maintain any position in which she was placed with statue-like rigidity. Dr. Pétetin was also the first to record the automatic repetition by the subject of the movements of the operator; the recollection when re-magnetized of what had happened in a previous somnambulic condition, but had been forgotten in the normal interval; and he also recorded the production of what is now known as a negative hallucination. When he had suggested to his subject that whoever would touch a certain candlestick would disappear from her sight, the subject no longer saw the individual thus spirited away. But as in the case of Puységur, so also in that of Pétetin, he became known not for his most careful and significant observations, but for those which administered to the love of the marvelous, and which were in essence totally erroneous. Pétetin's contribution to the aggregate of error in which this study was to be merged was the memorable "transposition of the senses." The same subject who brought to his notice the cataleptic condition led him into this extravagance. This subject while magnetized began to sing vociferously; while engaged in changing her position during her catalepsy, his chair slipped, and he fell toward her, exclaiming, "Oh, how unfortunate that I cannot stop this singing." "Oh, doctor," she replied, "do not worry, I won't sing any more;" and she stopped at once. Presently the singing was resumed, and no words of the doctor could stop it, until he spoke to her in the attitude previously assumed by the accidental fall, with his head near her stomach. In this position she heard him and obeyed, but gave no heed to his commands when he shouted them into her ear. And thus was originated the transposition of the senses; for Pétetin at once concluded, in accordance with the remarkable sensibilities attributed to somnambules, that his subject heard through her stomach. By further experiments he became convinced that tastes and odors could be similarly perceived, and that his subject could read what was written on a card applied to her stomach. He also credited the various other exalted and marvelous mental faculties of his subjects, and added to the prevailing mystery and supernatural tendency of the period. His historical influence was but slight; he was regarded as a mesmerist, and was chiefly remembered by his introduction of the transposition of the senses into the traditional system of artificial somnambulism. It is interesting to note that the detection of error in another's work does not protect against a similar error in one's own; Puységur, while accepting with implicit faith the extravagances of his own subjects, was able to recognize that unconscious suggestion lay at the basis of Pétetin's observations. If at first, he remarks, Pétetin had happened to suppose that his cataleptics could speak only during the wane of the moon in May, they would have been dumb for eleven and a half months.