[Establishment of the necessity for a review of the vascular endothelium: an introduction]

The vascular endothelium despite of its relative small total mass is distributed all over the organism and is obligatory for nearly all vital processes. The following review will show, how many structural and functional properties of the endothelium are accessible to modern morphological research and will summarize results obtained by the authors of this review in context with the modern literature. The intentions of the authors are to contribute to a better understanding of morphological results and to find new access to scientific and clinical problems of endothelium.