In patients with pronounced disability from degenerative arthritis of the knee joint, who are selected on the basis of their physical fitness for operation and in particular for their willingness to cooperate with the postoperative regimen herein described, the surgical procedures as detailed in the text result in marked amelioration of symptoms. Over a follow-up period ranging from nineteen months to five years, postoperative observations on a group of twenty patients indicate that the surgical treatment of degenerative arthritis deserves an important part in the physician's armamentarium.