The Informative Abstract

To the Editor.—  The Informative Abstract¹ contained information that was particularly worrisome to me as an editor responsible for the publication of a number of medical journals, namely your assertion that physicians "spend many hours each January reading journals."All previously available data about the reading habits of physicians indicate a fairly even (although low) annual distribution of reading time, punctuated by small decreases in July and September attributable to vacations and the beginning of the new academic year. If your new findings are indeed substantiated, then journal publishing is in trouble.Intuitively, one can find at least one possible (albeit lame) explanation for the eager reading in January: New Year's resolutions gone sour ("This year, as God is my witness, I shall not go uninformed!"). It would be interesting to do a citation study and chart such monthly fluctuations. If January articles are more heavily cited, then you