Evaluation of the surgical treatment of arterial embolism is almost impossible on a statistical basis. Proponents of the conservative treatment emphasize the high mortality associated with surgery, whereas the more surgical-minded point to limb survival and restoration of pulses as the basis for evaluating surgical results. As in the analysis of all types of treatment the selection of cases is, of course, very important. The group of patients having arterial emboli of necessity carry a high mortality with or without any form of surgical therapy. The difference between success and failure in the surgical treatment of these patients is more often related to the degree of cardiac compensation and the degree to which the embolism itself contributes to cardiac failure rather than the technical procedure itself. One of the best surveys on a series of unselected cases of arterial embolism is that by Haimovici.1 These cases were analyzed regardless