[00:00.49]Many people in industry and the Services, who have practical experience of noise,
[00:06.44]regard any investigation of this question as a waste of time;
[00:11.05]they are not prepared even to admit the possibility that noise affects people.
[00:16.57]On the other hand,those who dislike noise will sometimes use most inadequate evidence to support their pleas for a quieter society.
[00:25.91]those who dislike noise will sometimes use most inadequate evidence to support their pleas for a quieter society.
[00:35.41]This is a pity, because noise abatement really is a good cause, and it is likely to be discredited if it gets to be associated with had science.
[00:46.43]One allegation often made is that noise produces mental illness.
[00:51.89]A recent article in a weekly newspaper, for instance, was headed with a striking illustration of a lady in a state of considerable distress,
[01:01.59]with the caption 'She was yet another victim, reduced to a screaming wreck'.
[01:08.19]On turning eagerly to the text, one learns that the lady was a typist who found the sound of office typewriters worried her more and more until eventually she had to go into a mental hospital.
[01:22.14]Now the snag in this sort of anecdote is of course that one merely a symptom?
[01:36.38]Another patient might equally well complain that her neighbours were combining to slander her and persecute her,
[01:43.29]and yet one might be cautious about believing this statement.
[01:47.01]What is needed in case of noise is a study of large numbers of people living under noisy conditions,
[01:54.20]to discover whether they are mentally ill more often than other people are.
[01:58.95]Some time ago the United States Navy, for instance, examined a very large number of men working on aircraft carriers:
[02:07.05]the study was known as Project Anehin.
[02:10.47]It can be unpleasant to live even several miles from an aerodrome;
[02:15.07]if you think what it must be like to share the deck of a ship with several squadrons of jet aircraft,
[02:21.55]you will realize that a modern navy is a good place to study noise.
[02:26.52]But neither psychiatric interviews nor objective tests were able to show any effects upon these American sailors.
[02:34.97]This result merely confirms earlier American and British studies:
[02:39.96]if there is any effect of noise upon mental health,
[02:43.33]it must be so small that present methods of psychiatric diagnosis cannot find it.
[02:49.25]That does not prove that it does exist:
[02:52.74]but it does mean that noise is less dangerous than, say, being brought up in an orphanage -- which really is mental health hazard.
