This two-volume work provides a consolidation of essential concepts and developments within microvascular physiology. Each chapter introduces the scope and principles of its topic and offers more experienced investigators a critical assessment of key ideas and techniques. The approach integrates contemporary and classical thought, outlining the development of microcirculation theory from the earliest observations. The discoveries of bioengineers and mathematically oriented biologists in the 1960s are traced, and authors discuss the valuable and continuing advances that have come from electron microscopy. They also focus on the recent upsurge of interest in the cellular biology of endothelium. In reviewing these and other contributions, this work provides a comprehensive, in-depth compendium of current knowledge.