It provides us with both a pleasure and satisfaction to prepare the Preface for the Second Edition of this book. Foremost, it indicates to us, the authors, that the book was well received by the science community and that a strong interest exists for what it covers: modern biological and medical electron microscopy. Notwithstanding the enormous progress of light microscopy, it is simply the electron microscope which provides unmatched high resolution with the consequent detailed structural information.
For the second edition, we have kept the principal outline of the book. It is made up of two parts. Part 1, The Cell, which contains as much as possible a complete documentation of the various cellular organelles including the cytoskeleton, cell-cell contacts and cell-extracellular matrix interactions of normal cells in tissues or grown in culture. This part also includes a representative compilation of characteristic changes of organelles produced by experimental conditions commonly used to study membrane traffic and protein transport, or altered processes which arise from human diseases. Part 2, Principles of Tissue Organisation, is not intended to be complete in terms of all tissue structures. Rather, it is deliberately selective and explores the fine structural basis of specific functions performed by particular tissues and their constituent cells. Like the first part, it comprises a representative documentation of normal tissues and of changes that are characteristic and therefore diagnostic for particular diseases. For both parts, however, emphasis was placed on an integrated view of structure and function to illustrate and discuss the concept that cellular organelles provide the structural foundation for the fundamental processes of living organisms.