towards the end of plate 20 the edge of the holes 22 is conical as fig3 shows so that by means of a conical screw head a compression may be exerted on the vertebra in which the screw in the elongated holes 22 are screwed in the plates 20 may be made of an endless material as indicated at 23 and from this material a desired length is cut off in particular by the surgeon fig4 shows vertebras 24 of cervical vertebras which are connected to each other by a plate 26 the structure of the plate 26 corresponds to the plate 10 of fig1 i e the plate comprises rows of screw holes 16b and rows of holes 18b having a smaller diameter to facilitate shaping the plate 26 is bent along its length axis in particular in the edge zone and in addition thereto along its normal axes to better fit to the outer contour of the vertebras 24 only the screw holes 16b located in the center of the vertebras 24 accomodate bone screws 28 the plate 30 shown in fig5 is provided with rows of screw holes 16c wherein rows with three screw holes 16c alternate with rows of two screw holes 16c the distance between the rows with three screw holes 16c or respectively between the rows with two screw holes 16c approximately corresponds again to the center distance of adjacent vertebras of the cervical spine between the screw holes rows of through holes 18c of smaller diameter are provided one realizes that by providing the screw holes 16c the plate 30 is stiffer in its central region than towards the longitudinal edges this is augmented by selecting the distance of both the central holes 18c larger than between a central.