HERBERT K. ABRAMS, MLD.

THE WESTERN CANADIAN LUMBER WORKER

Medical Director, Union Health Service, Inc., Chicago

“A stench in the ears,” said the irascible Ambrose Bierce in defining noise in The

' Devil’s Dictionary about sixty years ago. Since then this stench has grown steadily worse.

We live in an increasingly noisy world. Typical of the times is the following news item

from a French newspaper. “Three thousand bottles of burgundy wine in the cellar of Louis

Chazy were broken yesterday when an army jet plane went through the sound barrier.” For

more than 100 years we have known that deafness is a sign of the trade of boilermakers,
blacksmiths, forge workers, weavers and railway workers and certain other trades.

Today it is a widespread
problem in industry. Says the
U.S. Public Health Service,
“Potentially harmful noise
levels in the factory. probably
affect more workers than any
other hazard in the occupa-
tional setting.” Some of the
industries with outstanding
noise problems are paper
mills, lumber saw mills, ship
building, steel and other
metal industries, aircraft,
auto and other heavy assem-
bly line -operations. Among
the occupations in which
there is a high noise exposure
are operators of drop ham-
mers, chipping hammers,
screw machines, punch press-
es, riveters, air drills, milling
machines, compressed air ma-
chinery, cutoff saws, planers,
routers, special hammers, cir-
cular saws, spinners, looms,
lathes, etc. !

While we have known the
fact that industrial noise can
cause permanent deafness,
little was done about it until
1948, when the New York
State Court of Appeals made
an award in favor of a work-
er who experienced hearing
loss as a result of his occupa-
tion.

These are some of the facts
about noise:

(1) The bearing loss
caused by loud noise is due
to damage to the inner ear,
where the nerve of hearing
ends,

(2) Such damage is per-
manent. No method of re-
pairing the delicate struc-
tures injured by noise is
known,

(3) Noise causes more
impairment of hearing for
high pitched tones than for
low tones. In the beginning,
most or all of the impair-
ment is for tones above the
pitch ranges of ordinary
speech, Later the hearing
impairment reaches the fre-
quency of speech sounds.

(4) Hearing impairment
due to noise can be prevent-
ed by reducing the level of
the sounds that actually
reach the inner ear.

(5) There are several
causes of deafness other
than noise exposure: birth
defects, ear diseases, aging,
and certain drugs such as

; — and streptomycin.
owever, occupational
deafness can be diagnosed
examination and history
a exposure to occupational

¢ CAUSE ACCIDENTS

Noise also be a cause
- eatbunte’ wt work, If work-
cannot hear each other or

TTA T A

IT DOES WORK!

ATM tt

sues and even kill small ani-
mals. Therefore, sound waves
are a phenomenon that we
now treat with respect.

HOW SOUND IS
MEASURED

Sound is measured in two
ways. The intensity or loud-
ness of the sound is measured
by a unit called decibel. The
pitch of the sound is mea-
sured in terms of frequency
or cycles of the sound wave.
Thus, tones of high pitch are
caused by high frequency
sound waves. Low pitch
sounds are caused by low
frequency of sound waves.

In general high frequency

, noises are more dangerous to

hearing than low frequency
noises. However, the chief
factor in determining wheth-
er there will be hearing loss
is the intensity or decibels of
noise, and the length of ex-
posure. It has been found that
about 90 decibels is the criti-
eal level. That is, persons ex-
posed to 90 decibels or more
of noise over a continuous
period of time will eventually
suffer loss of hearing. Noises
of this level that are not con-
tinuous will not be so damag-
ing. Noises of an intensity of
160 decibels or more may ac-
tually cause a rise of the body
temperature, a blurring of
vision (probably due to vi-
brations), muscular weak-
ness, and even pain.

To give some idea of these
figures in practical terms, a
jet motor at 75 feet will pro-
duce noise of 130 decibels or
more. Drop hammers and
chipping hamers produce 110
to 125 decibels. Circular saws,
cutoff saws, air drills, milling
machines, punch presses and
riveters cause noise in the
range between 90 and 115

By BOB ROSS
Regional Safety Director

You will recall that I warned the last Annual Convention of the IWA that if the
trend in logging fatalities continues at the same rate until the end of 1962, we in the
woodworking industry would have succeeded in killing more people in the woods
than in any year since 1949.

However, the IWA, the WCB and the management of most companies decided
that they would see what could be done about changing the statistical curve. In other
words, all three groups decided that if we could work together for the remaining
months of the year, we could save some lives in logging. We now know that we were
successful; that the concerted drive which the Union, the WCB and Management put
on did in fact turn the tide.

Statistics now available from the WCB show that fitty-five loggers were killed in
B.C. this year. This is one less death than the yearly average since 1957. There is a
grim lesson to be learned here. If Unions and Management, working with the Com-
pensation Board, can get together on a crash program in the last few months of a
year to prevent deaths in logging camps, does it mot sound reasonable that we can
use this same approach twelve months out of the year to prevent the fifty-five deaths
that have occurred in the past year. If we can get together to arrest the toll of lives,
surely we can get together to stop slaughter completely.

ONL

i

of leaves produces 0 to
enough decibels just to be
barely audible.

THE CONTROL OF
INDUSTRIAL SITES

Every modern industry to-
day will try to reduce noise
to the lowest possible level.
There are several basic ways
of doing this. They are:

(1) Control at the source.

Good engineering design can

eliminate much noise. Noise
from worn and improperly
maintained machines can be
reduced by keeping them. in
good. operating condition.
Wire mesh screens instead of
sheet metal panels reduce
vibrating noisy surfaces. Lin-
ings of absorbent materials
reduce impact noise, etc.

(2) Substitution of a less
noisy process. For example,
spot arc or flame welding
substituted for riveting; belt
drive instead of gears, etc.

(3) Isolation. Move noisy
machines to an area where
few people are working. In-
stall well insulated partitions
and tightly closing doors.

(4) Enclosure or baffling of
the noise source. Enclose or
baffle the noise producing op-
eration in such a manner as
to prevent spreading of the
noise into the surrounding
air,
(5) Resilient machine
mountings. Heavy machines
firmly. bolted to concrete or
wood floors frequently trans-
form the floors into huge
sounding boards which am-
plify the noise and spread it
throughout the building. On
the other hand, resilient
mountings of rubber or other
materials isolate the machine
from the floor and reduce the
vibration and noise.

(6) Sound Absorptive ma-
terials. Hard surfaces such as
plaster and brick walls reflect
sound and cause reverbera-

and walls in the form of acou-
stical tiles, plasters, sprayed-~
on compositions and blankets
of porous materials, such as
glasswool. Acoustic baffles
can be hung from the ceilings.

(7) Ear protectors: When
it is impossible to reduce the
noise sufficiently, even with
sound controls such as men-

MALU UU

tioned above, as in the testing
of jet engines, then ear pro-
tectors are needed. Personal
ear protection is a method of
last resort. Molded and pli-
able ear plugs, ear muffs, hel-
mets and ear. valves are avail-
able. Protection by good ear
defenders can reduce the
noise by 25 to 40 decibels.
The use of both ear plugs and
ear muffs or helmets is most
effective. Remember that cot-
ton in the ear is not effective.

(8) Rotation of personnel.
Since the effects of sound on
hearing depend partly on the
length of exposure to the
sound, the bad effects may be
reduced by removing the
worker from the noisy en-
vironment whenever audio-
grams indicate a hearing loss.

(9) Medical measures. A
modern industry which has a
noise problem will at the time
of employment and periodi-
cally thereafter check the
worker’s hearing by means of
the audiometer. This is a
machine which tests hearing,
and reports it on an “audio-
gram”. In this way, hearing
losses can be quickly detected
and oftentimes permanent
damage can be prevented.
Generally speaking, a hear-
ing loss which has lasted for
at least six months will be
permanent.

WORKMEN’S
COMPENSATION

Workers have experienced
great difficulties in obtaining
compensation from hearing
loss resulting from industrial
exposure. The technical ob-
stacles include legalistic de-
fects in the various laws, such
as inadequate statutes of lim-
itations (occupational deaf-
ness usually takes years to
develop). Also, some compen-
sation iota aus a nabae
narrowly to apply only where
there is loss of income as a
result of the disability. In

injured worker cannot enjoy
music or conversation is not
taken into account. Some
states are more emancipated
than others. It is still a strug-
gle in many areas to obtain
equitable recognition of occu-
pational deafness as a com-

pensable disability.

SAFETY
BRIEFS

Safety Pays, Slogan Doesn’t

. . . Because only one teen-
age boy out of more than 1000
asked.knew that Indiana
license plates bear the words
“Safety Pays,” the slogan will
be dropped in 1963.

Re EK,

A gasoline station in Osaka,
Japan, is offering its custom-
ers tea and hot baths while
their cars are serviced and
washed. The. purpose is to
help drivers relax and make
them less accident prone.

Ko eke eK,

Where There’s Smoke, etc.
. . . Just before the play
“Summer and Smoke” was
scheduled to start at the Fort
Rucker, Ala., Center Thea-
ter, fire broke out and de-
stroyed the theatre.

Ra SHES Lea

It Happens Every Fall...

News item: A hunter climbed
over a fence with his gun
cocked. He is survived by his
widow, three children and a

rabbit.
* * *

A traffic safety sign, which
gave a running account of the
number of traffic deaths in
Calhoun County, Mich., was

’ recently removed by the state

highway department as a
trafic hazard. Although put
up to remind motorists that
death stalks the highways,
the sign straddled the high-
way right-of-way line.

* * *

A woman thought some-
thing was wrong as she drove
away from a Globe, Ariz.,
market in her pickup truck.
A strange car was following
her closely. Pulling over to
investigate, she discovered
she had been towing a car
whose bumper had become
caught in a trailer hitch on
the pickup.

Rin Keo *K

Convincing Act... A Mem-
phis, Tenn., bus driver got
quite a scare when he saw a
small boy suddenly topple
from his bicycle and lie mo-
tionless on the sidewalk. The
driver stopped the bus, hur-
ried across the street and
bent over the crumpled form.
The lad raised his head and
explained: “I’m not hurt —
I’m dead. We’re playing cow-
boys and Indians.”

Doni Se. Saati

The Sacramento, Calif.
sheriff recently appeared on
television to demonstrate the
safe use of fireworks for July
4th, He waved a lighted
sparkler too near a basket of
fireworks, Later, after a buc-
ket brigade doused the fire-
works, the sheriff comment-

“Tt couldn’t have been a

ee as