Since it was founded, in 1872, Revista Médica de Chile has published all its contents in Spanish. Abstracts in English began to appear in 1960 and in 1962 they became mandatory for every article published. Since 1974 the Abstract in English is presented at the beginning of the respective article. This is currently a regulation enforced by MEDLINE, SCI and other organizations that include this journal in their indexing services. An Assistant Editor is specifically in charge of improving the format and contents of these abstracts, with the best available use of the English language. While Revista Médica de Chile will continue to publish in Spanish those articles originated in Chile and other Spanish-speaking countries, this issue of the journal starts adding articles in English, by guest authors from English-speaking countries. This policy will give us the opportunity to include articles in frontier topics, written by distinguished authors. (Rev Méd Chile 2000; 128: 1187-89)