Friedel contributed his "Mesomorphic States of Matter" to the Annales des Physiques in 1922. This two-hundred-page work established much of the current terminology in mesophase physics. First, the "nematic phase" he characterized as having microscopic threads (these threads are today interpreted as disclinations in the director-field in the mesophase). Second, Friedel coined the term "smectic phase" for a layered mesophase having the structure of neat soap. Third, Friedel use the term "cholesteric phase" for materials like cholesteryl benzoate, and noted that such mesophases "involve strong twists around a direction normal to the positive optical axis".