During the first influenza epidemic of 1918, I observed two cases of premature labor in the course of influenza in the Philippine General Hospital. The patients were at first admitted to the medical department and were later transferred to the department of obstetrics. I could not attribute the interruption of pregnancy in these two cases to any causes other than influenza and quinin. Quinin was considered as a possible cause, because the patients, while in the medical department, were given massive doses of the drug which, according to various authors,1 strongly stimulates the contraction of the uterus, and is even credited with producing abortion.
During the three months beginning with October of 1918, when the largest epidemic of influenza broke out in the Philippine Islands, thirty-six cases of influenza were admitted to the department of obstetrics. In nine cases, the disease was contracted in the course of the puerperium,