The main criticism of the work reviewed surely must be that treatment from aspirin to hormones, bed rest to psychiatry, has been given to patients with a bad obstetrical history and not because there was any demonstrable abnormality in the current pregnancy. The aetiology of recurrent abortions, excluding organic causes, remains obscure, but evidence has recently been produced which would suggest that some spontaneous abortions may be the result of endocrine imbalance, and this has been shown by endocrine vaginal cytology (Hochstaedt, Lange, and Spira, 1960), urinary pregnanediol estimations (Loraine, 1958 ; Shearman and Garrett, 1963), and urinary gonadotrophin levels (Gemzell, 1961, personal communication). In this paper an attempt is made to evaluate the role of vaginal cytology in determining the prognosis of the current pregnancy in patients with a history of recurrent abortions, and whether hormonal treatment can be justified in patients who present with an abnormal pregnancy smear.