[Premature delivery: with reference to certain etiological data and the role of cervico-vaginal infections].

Premature delivery is by definition, delivery that occurs some time before the end of pregnancy. It is important, particularly when considering prevention, to concentrate only on the criterion of duration of pregnancy and to measure this as accurately as possible with the different methods available. The other etiological investigations that have been reported should be analysed critically as these have generally been based on measurements of weight; on the basis of such data, it is not possible to distinguish clearly between hypotrophy and prematurity. Furthermore, the factors that are statistically connected with prematurity are not necessarily etiologically important. The author believes that a factor that is often not mentioned is of direct and etiological importance: cervicovaginal infection, the inflammatory irritation of the endocervical canal and of the lower pole of the ovum, starting, by means of reflexes, untimely uterine contractions.