Word: khamsin
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Moving up out of the desert each spring and fall, the khamsin is an ill wind that blows no one in the Middle East any good. It picks up hot air and dust as it sweeps across Africa and the Sinai Peninsula, bringing a variety of afflictions in its northerly thrust. The moistureless air causes feet to swell painfully, noses and eyes to itch and asthmatics to gasp for breath. The khamsin can also madden men. Automobile accidents are far more frequent when it is blowing, crime rates increase by as much as 20% and tempers rise with the mercury...
...with the problem. The Israelis, however, are trying to do something about it. A team headed by Professor Felix Gad Sulman of the Hebrew University's Department of Applied Pharmacology in Jerusalem has conducted a nine-year study that has not only identified the medical causes of the khamsin's curse but also devised treatment...
...team had an ideal laboratory. Jerusalem has up to 150 days of khamsin a year, during which time temperatures soar above 90° while the relative humidity plummets toward zero. Half of the city's population suffer from some kind of khamsin-related condition. For many, the misery is minor, such as swelling of the extremities. For others, how ever, the effects are far more pervasive...
...atmosphere produced by the khamsin contains an excess of positive ions. Young people, whose metabolic rates tend to be high, react to such atmospheric conditions by absorbing positive electrical energy like a storage battery, until they literally become overcharged. Their hair becomes electrified and stands on end, and they develop migraine headaches and nausea. They become tense, irritable and occasionally violent. They also secrete large amounts of serotonin, a hormone associated with the nervous system...
Double Play. Meanwhile, though the Arabs continued to talk tough, they were busy looking for exits through which they could escape with honor. The plain fact was that, as Arab and Jew squared off for battle in the hazy heat of a khamsin desert wind, no one wanted the battle to start. From the beginning, the crisis had been the product of massive miscalculations. Nasser, who has repeatedly and publicly warned that the Arabs are not yet strong enough to take on Israel, made the first mistake by signing a mutual defense pact with his fellow leftists in Syria...