Abstract
To the Editor: The morning peak in incidence of myocardial infarction described by Muller et al. (November 21 issue)1 is consistent with a number of studies on the circadian distribution of human mortality.2 3 4 5 6 Mitler et al. reported on 4920 disease-related deaths randomly sampled from death certificates at the New York City Bureau of Vital Statistics for 1979.6 There were 2463 deaths in that sample that were recorded as being due to ischemic heart disease (International Classification of Diseases, ninth revision [Clinical Modification], codes 410 to 414). Like the myocardial infarctions described by Muller et al., deaths . . .