May people in industry and the Services, who have practical experience of noise, regard
any investigation of this question as a waste of time; they are not prepared even to admit
the possibility that noise affects people. On the other hand, those who dislike noise will
sometimes use most inadequate evidence to support their pleas for a quieter society. 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.
One allegation often made is that noise produces mental illness. A recent article in a weekly
newspaper, for instance, was headed with a striking illustration of a lady in a state of
considerable distress, with the caption 'She was yet another victim, reduced to a screaming
wreck'. 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. Now the snag in this sort of anecdote is of course that one merely a
symptom? Another patient might equally well complain that her neighbours were combining
to slander her and persecute her, and yet one might be cautious about believing this statement.
What is needed in case of noise is a study of large numbers of people living under noisy
conditions, to discover whether they are mentally ill more often than other people are.
Some time ago the United States Navy, for instance, examined a very large number of men
working on aircraft carriers: the study was known as Project Anehin. It can be unpleasant to
live even several miles from an aerodrome; if you think what it must be like to share the
deck of a ship with several squadrons of jet aircraft, you will realize that a modern navy is
a good place to study noise. But neither psychiatric interviews nor objective tests were able
to show any effects upon these American sailors. This result merely confirms earlier American
and British studies: if there is any effect of noise upon mental health, it must be so small
that present methods of psychiatric diagnosis cannot find it. That does not prove that it
does exist: but it does mean that noise is less dangerous than, say, being brought up in
an orphanage -- which really is mental health hazard.