The true identity of Pascal’s mite and the diachronic use of ciron

Henri M André

doi:10.24349/acarologia/20194330

Abstract

The identity of Blaise Pascal’s mite is examined. Linguistics, morphology, habitat and size reveal that Pascal’s mite is not Acarus siro L., as usually thought, but Sarcoptes scabiei (L.). The diachronic use of the popular term ciron is explored from a number of different perspectives. In everyday language and in Pascal’s time, the term used to designate A. siro L. was mite (used singly, in English and French) and not ciron, a word restricted to the scabies mite; its use is also investigated. The classification of mites in the 17th and 18th centuries is reviewed.

Highlights

Blaise Pascal’s Pensées was published, after his death, in 1670, but was written at an epoch when the microscope became a recreational tool for laypersons (Armintor, 2011)
How did French dictionaries of the time define a ciron? All French dictionaries of the 17th century took the term ciron, from the Nicot’s Thresor de la langue françoyse, a document that played an important role in the development of French lexicography, to the 1st edition of the dictionary published by the French Academy
They all described the habits of the scabies mite (Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Blaise Pascal’s Pensées was published, after his death, in 1670, but was written at an epoch when the microscope became a recreational tool for laypersons (Armintor, 2011). Pascal (1623–1662, France) was completely educated by his father and is considered a child prodigy When he was eleven, he delivered a thesis about the beginning and discontinuation of sound and, at sixteen, he wrote an essay on conic sections. He delivered a thesis about the beginning and discontinuation of sound and, at sixteen, he wrote an essay on conic sections This “effrayant génie” (“scary genius”), as named by Chateaubriand (1802), is renowned as a mathematician (early pioneer in the fields of game theory and probability theory, Pascal’s triangle), physicist (the unit of pressure, the pascal, is named after him), inventor (the pascaline is the world’s first fully functional mechanical calculator), philosopher (Pascal’s wager) and writer. He forms part of the French Baccalaureate Literary Study Program

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