NOISE MENACE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 86, 10 January 1928, Page 16

NOISE MENACE

“THE THIEF OF HEALTH”

ECONOMIC LOSS ENORMOUS

“ ‘Take the din out of dinner and put the rest into lestauralits’ is quoted as being said by one sufferer from this present-day jazz, anil I wish an inventor chould be found to do it,” said Professor Spooner to the Society of Women Musicians, at London (says the “.Manchester Guardian”).

“Many people seem to enjoy this terrible din in restaurants and elsewhere, so much so that one establishment pays its jazz band £16,000 a year. “Some’ people think if they get so ’ accustomed to noise that they no longer notice it it is harmless to them. That is a fallacy, for, although noise may not be heard, the nerve-force suffers, and noise, whether heard or not, is the . most inveterate thief of health. “One of the most serious aspects of the noise problem is that of sleep, particularly in its relation to mental workers and invalids. Countless people diving near traffic noises are deprived of sufficient sleep and. thereby injured in health.

“We should see that the rooms of oui Cabinet Ministers and our executives are soupd proof, as deep thinking is only possible where quietness prevails. “We English are very slow to move, even when we see a thing ought to be done, but it is to be hoped that the success due to the tightening up of the law against ear-splitting hooters and noisy "motor-cycle exhausts will lead to other beneficent enactments.

“I think that in the aggregate the economic loss due to impairment of working capacity owing to noise must be a good deal over £1,000,000 a week in this country alone, but the loss due to ill-health and premature death cannot be estimated. "So far, little has been done to combat this noise menace, and the only way, I think, is to agitate for a Public Health Noise-abatement Act and to try and get the medical organisation of the League of Nations to take up the question in the cause of humanity.-’