The treatment of obliterative vascular disease by peripheral nerve block was first reported by Silbert1 (1922), the posterior tibial nerve having been blocked with alcohol for relief of pain in thromboangiitis obliterans. Carlette2 (1929) reported his method of cutting the terminal sensory branches subcutaneously above a painful ulcer of the malleolus. Smithwick and White3 (1930) reported 11 cases in which alcohol was injected and Allen4 (1932) 29 cases from the same clinic in which similar treatment was employed. In 1933 Laskey and Silbert5 reported on 18 patients treated by the division and immediate suture of the peripheral nerves. The procedure was recommended to avoid sloughs due to spilling or seepage of alcohol and because occasionally the entire sensory nerves were not blocked by means of alcohol. Smithwick and White6 (1935) reported a total of 45 cases; in the later ones the block was effected