Check Nerve Rack of City Noise

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 190, 28 August 1937, Page 13

Check Nerve Rack of City Noise

. * - . ... . : " "JSToise and; speed in Sydney . are hurrying a> big : percentage of the population towards premature graves, iacreasing'tho toll of -mental iilness and hlhng-.the. consulting rooms with nerverackcd people, ; 3 said • aj Macquarie street specialist recently. He 'urged that tho Government convcne a conference'without delay to discover some . f ormula for ininimising noise. The Transport Department is alive to the problem, and noise tests of road vehicles were carried out: xecently with a special machine lent' by. the University. , Individual; offort, howevcr, is.only tinkering with the problem, the specialist claims. "Sydney is one of the noisiest cities in the world," the specialist said. "In the interests of .public health the Government has a plain duty to act., "With my experience of many ycars in a Macquario street practice, I saythat the toll taken by noise and the terrific speed.of modern life is increasing rapidly.' "Ijhave ,treated«m6n and women, organically sound, but nervous wrecks; — ^people with nervous systems so delicately balanced that the clatter and clash of - city traffie and other noises have, in themselves,-' been sufficient to throw them out of-gear. "The* nervous system can bo likened to the strings of .a ;cello. Instead of playing the 'cello,with. a bow, we are smashing on the strings with a sledge hammer. ' ' Unless . we . do • son.ething . to abate the noise.; nuisance, the economic loss to business and industry," directly and indirectly, fr^ceable to nerve strain, will increase far beyond its present.proportions. ... ; . ' 'Furthermore— and, hcro the Government is directly" concerned — we can look forward to- a steady increaso in the incidence of mental iilness. "Large-numbers of men and women will suffer from' premature degeueracy of the' system,' becaus'e of the increasing noise. -Tt.willjmahifest itself in- various ways. Heart froubles, hardening axteries and such complaints are the penalties they will pay for tho 'privi-lege'.'-of Tiving'.in' Sydney, one of the noisiest cities I have-ever been in." In tests" carried out by tho Transport Department with tho > machine lent by the University, motor-cycles registered as the worst offenders for intensity oi' noise^ . Following them frams and raotor lorries madi the greatest impressiou on Ihe machine.