The Tyranny of Noise

Robert Alex Baron

Part II — Chapter 3 — The Price In Health

Chapter 3 — The Price In Health

If ours were a civilized society, it would not be necessary to work so hard to make a case for noise as a health problem. But when courts rule that we must accept annoyance and even damage from noise as the price of civilization, a public health rationale for noise abatement becomes a must. And it is not easy to find one. People with limited foresight would like to wait until the blood comes out of the public's ears. To them noise is a necessary nuisance, and abatement is not entitled to a share of the nation's wealth. The same kind of limited viewpoint delayed action on air pollution until it had undeniably caused deaths in London, New York, Los Angeles, and Donora, Pennsylvania (where the relationship between air pollution and death was established for the first time). The challenge must emphasize the plausibility of harm.

What is health, anyway?

The traditional definition has been that health is freedom from disease. But health must include psychic health and the protection of the human personality. The World Health Organization codified these concepts in its constitution when it expanded the definition of health to include not only freedom from disease, but a state of well-being. This parallels the physician's growing recognition of the need for preventing disease—and not just waiting for illness to strike.

Acceptance of this progressive definition by organized medicine would give the physician a basis for supporting noise-abatement measures as a recognized method of disease prevention.