"Non-specific" vaginitis: a non-entity.

The author alleges that any knowledgeable physician owning a vaginal speculum and a microscope should rarely find the need for using the diagnosis, "non-specific" vaginitis, and that its too frequent use might well imply carelessness, indifference or a failure to employ available diagnostic methods. The suggestion is made that if the term "non-specific" vaginitis is to be retained in gynecologic nomenclature it should be assigned its rightful position and should include only those conditions without assignable etiology. The evidence shows that Gardnerella vaginalis (Haemophilus vaginalis, Corynebacterium vaginale) vaginitis is a precisely defined, specific vaginal infection, that the disease is sexually transmitted and that it accounts for most vaginitides previously classified as "nonspecific".