Genus. Nephrophages.
Nephrophages sanguinarius, Miyake and Scriba, 1893.
Fig. 354.—Nephrophages sanguinarius: male, ventral surface. Enlarged. (After Miyake and Scriba.)
Males measure 0·117 mm. in length and 0·079 mm. in breadth; females up to 0·360 mm. in length by 0·120 mm. in breadth. The head is provided with two very large scissors-like jaws and two large round eyes. The legs are composed of five segments and are all of equal length; the three anterior pairs of legs have pedunculated ambulacra, the posterior ones terminate in a claw. The cuticle on the back is thickened in three places, shield-like; the abdominal surface without scutellum is longitudinally striped and is beset with chitinous hairs. Colour greenish to brownish-yellow. Eggs 0·046 to 0·040 mm.
Fig. 355.—Nephrophages sanguinarius: female, dorsal aspect. Enlarged. (After Miyake and Scriba.)
The authors discovered these mites, but always dead, in the urine of a Japanese suffering from fibrinuria complicated with chyluria and hæmaturia. They surmised that they were endoparasites, probably situated in the kidney; but this view is not convincing, though they also report that for a week, day after day, the mites were found in the patient’s urine, as well as in urine drawn off by means of a catheter, and in the water used to wash out the bladder (one or two specimens and an egg). The statement that these mites have large eyes makes the discovery suspicious, to say the least. The significance of the discovery is not supported by the further statement that Disse is supposed to have found an encapsuled mite closely related to the Tyroglyphides on the wall of the vena cava.