THE COST OF NOISE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 120, 18 February 1928, Page 22

THE COST OF NOISE

“Take the din out of dinner and put the rest into restaurants” is quoted as being said by one sufferer from this present-day jazz, and I wisli an inventor could be found to do it (said Professoi Spooner, speaking to the Society oi Women Musicians in London)., 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 living near traffic noises are deprived of sufficient sleep and thereby injured in health 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 Noiseabatement Act and to try and get the medical organisation of the League of Nations to take up the question in the cause of humanity.