It is with pleasure that I write this foreword for the book "Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Coronary Artery Disease", edited by Dr. van der Wall and Dr. de Roos. I am pleased for two reasons. Firstly, as chairman of
the Scientific Board of the Interuniversity Cardiology Institute of the Netherlands (ICIN), because ever since the technique became available for use in medicine and biology our Institute has tried and succeeded to promote the
introduction and dev- opment of magnetic resonance imaging in cardiology in the Netherlands. ICIN was the first cardiological institute on the European continent to purchase its own nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscope for
the study of myocardial metabolism. Secondly, because I have always been infatuated with this noninvasive technique that can produce cardiac images without ionic radiation and at the same time allows for the study of
myocardial metabolism as well. And even more so because nuclear magnetic resonance imaging in medicine is one of the shining examples of medical progress as a result of breakthrough discoveries in physics and chemistry.