Portis and Roth1 recently reviewed the literature on embolectomy of the peripheral arteries and stated that only 131 cases had been reported. Four months earlier, however, Pearse2 cited 296 cases which had been reported in the literature to July 1932.
All articles on this subject imply that the authors are in agreement with the commonly accepted opinion, that when gangrene results from the occlusion of large vessels, the resulting gangrene, without operation, is fatal.
Respect, however, has grown for the collateral circulation, especially in those portions of the body where end arteries have been said to exist. Case 1 is reported to demonstrate the fact that a fatal outcome is not always the result of a peripheral arterial embolism without embolectomy. This statement does not detract from the correctness of the conclusion of Key3 and others4 that in all threatening cases operation should be done. It