HEALTH NOTES.

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17746, 25 June 1929, Page 11

HEALTH NOTES.

NOISES.

A MODERN MENACE. (Contributed by the Department of Health.) A large proportion of ills which 1 afflict the community result directly or 1 indirectly from the development of a ■ mechanical environment. Congestion 5 in large towns. has led to a lack of ' accessory nutritional factors, exercise, i sunlight and fresh air. The use of ■ mechanical transport has been the i cause of hurry, anxiety and to a cer- : tain extent of stagnation. It is only 1 recently, however, that any public attention has been directed to noise as i a social evil. We have grown up without noticing its gradual increase, but anyone who pauses to listen to the hubbub of a London street at midday (states the Lancet) will realise how noisy civilisation has become. Lorries crash and rattle, motor-cars constantly sound electrical alarms, motor cycles bark, hawkers cry, trains thunder beneath, and aeroplanes roar above, and the road-mender’s pneumatic chisel, and its brother, the steel-worker’s riveter, complete the pandemonium. It is probable that most city dwellers find noise an intermittent nuisance, but several authorities have now declared that it is a definite menace to the public health, resulting in loss of efficiency and energy. The British Medical Association, in its memorandum on this question, states that the devastating effect of unnecessary noise on the health and efficiency of the community cannot be over-stated. It is not relevant in this connection to point to the apparent good health of men and women engaged in industries in which work has to be done to the inevitable accompaniment of the noise of machinery. Healthy people are capable of adapting themselves to noxious influences, though at a cost which in its very nature in incalculable. The diversion of a certain amount of energy to the necessary task of inhibiting the undesirable stimuli, of ignoring noises nerve-racking to those who hear them occasionally must involve an inevitable loss of personal and industrial efficiency. it must be emphasised, however, that the adaption is often facilitated by the nature and quality of such industrial noises. In many cases they are rhythmic, uniform, and predictable. They do not involve sudden changes of quality, pitch, or Intensity; they do not break with startling suddenness into the hearer’s consciousness. They represent what Is in effect a single stimulus to which adaption may be made fairly easily, though at a certain definite price, by the average healthy man or woman.

Street Noises.

The character of street noises is not :o be compared with that of the abovenentioned industrial noises. Street noises are unrhythmic, discordant, extremely varied in quality, pitch and intensity, and, above all, unpredictable. Thus it is the sudden unexpected screech of the ho'oter, the rattle of the milk-can laden lorry, or the explosion from the motor cycle exhaust that shatters the nerves rather than the low, incessant hum or rumble of dis- [ tant traffic. Moreover, the problem of street noises does not primarily concern the individual engaged in the noise-producing occupation. It concerns primarily the ordinary citizen, who to maintain his health and efficiency, needs a proper setting for rest and recuperation from the day's work; it concerns invalid and convalescent whose chances of recovery from illness may depend as much as on anything else on the presence of facilities for uninterrupted sleep; it concerns the neurasthenic, the sufferer from functional nervous diseases, whose condition, if not actually caused by sucii noises, is aggravated by them; and it concerns the brain worker en-. gaged in intricate calculation; or in an

occupation demanding continuous concentrated thought. The fact that large numbers of people, whether nervous or not, undoubtedly suffer intensely from noise is sufficient for all reasonable persons to support measures to diminish this nuisance. So much of the harm is done by individual thoughtlessness—the noisy theatre party, the loose tailboard, the unnecessary klaxon, for example—that it seems reasonable to hope that real ref rm could be brought about by personal consideration for others. 7