[Silhouettes: electron microscopic photography in bioscience].

The paper describes the first attempts of biological electron microphotography. It starts with a description of the early use of electron microscopy in biology, showing that electron microscopy was used as an extension of former light microscopical studies. Thus, the pictures produced by electron microscopy are interpreted as describing the micro-texture of those structures already seen in light microscopy. That was done irrespective from the specific problems of tissue preparation for electron microscopy. The use of photography in electron microscopy is discussed in more detail. It is shown that in electron microscopy, not the preparation itself which is usually destroyed or damaged during observation in the electron microscope. Thus, biological electron microscopy can be described as a real image science.