THE MODERN CACOPHONY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22067, 25 September 1933, Page 8

THE MODERN CACOPHONY

It is to be regretted that the hospital authorities have found it necessary to make fresh representations to the City Council with reference to the annoyance caused to patients in the Dunedin Hospital by noisy traffic in adjoining streets during the night. On the last occasion, on which this nuisance was brought to the notice of the Council, the honorary medical staff requested that steps should be taken to close the streets along the hospital frontages during certain hours of the night. The Council contented itself, however, with authorising the erection of additional corner signs warning the public against causing undue noise in the hospital area. This warning, which fell so far short in effectiveness of the somewhat drastic proposal that was made to the Council, has not had the desired effect. It was not in the least to be imagined that some of the inconsiderate motorists, who thunder through the streets in the quiet hours of the night, would be moved by it. The subject of noise abatement is one to which civic authorities practically the world over have for some years turned if not a deaf ear at least a worried and rather hopeless countenance. Investigation in the United States and England has established quite conclusively that the modern cacophony produced in the operation of motor vehicles, factory machinery, office appliances and a hundred other mechanical inventions has a prejudicial effect upon health, and is art enemy to efficiency. It has been estimated by Professor Spooner, a well-known engineer and scientist, that "noise costs Great Britain not less than £50,000,000 a year." Noise, he says, is the heaviest overhead cost in modern business. It impairs the working capacity of employees in commercial and industrial life, is at least a contributory factor in many accidents, and " in some extreme cases causes nervous prostration, noise deafness and even death." These statements, which are representative of the conclusions of many investigators, are sufficiently impressive to suggest the desirability of ensuring that no effort should be spared to protect patients in hospital from any rude interruptions produced by motor traffic. These sufferers, at least, are entitled to special consideration from the Council and the public. It would be vain to propose that the civic authorities in Dunedin should enforce such regulations as were proclaimed by the voluptuaries of Sybaris, who forbade even the crowing of a cock within the city limits after nightfall, but they have not yet taken all the reasonable measures, in their power to ensure that hospital patients are not needlessly disturbed during the night.