His attraction? The rice diet.

At a time when no effective therapy existed for diabetes, high blood pressure, and kidney disease, Kempner found that eating white rice and fruit—and very little or no salt—cured or significantly reversed these diseases. Patients lost weight, blood pressure dropped, general health improved and patients flocked to Durham in droves. Duke had to establish “rice houses” in town at cooperating motels/hotels to serve rice, fruit and vitamin supplements because the hospital overflowed.

We made rounds in the morning to check on each patient. Kempner walked stiffly erect, hands clasped behind the back of his starched, long white coat, and stethoscope dangling from his neck. He stood for a moment at each patient’s bedside and allowed them one question, and one question only. Invariably, they asked about their urine. Kempner had the hospital collect every drop and analyze it for salt to see who was cheating. An occasional patient who snuck a pizza slice the day before offered hard cash for the urine of someone who followed the rules.

One day a wealthy New Yorker, head of a major corporation, was admitted to Kempner’s service for uncontrolled high blood pressure and weight loss. He was a big guy, probably more than three hundred pounds, with a huge gut hanging over his belt. Used to giving orders, he struggled with Kempner’s domineering ways. After three weeks in the hospital eating rice every day except Friday when he was allowed boiled chicken, the patient began to go stir crazy. On Thursday, he’d become euphoric, anticipating Friday’s chicken dinner, and on Saturday, he plummeted to the depths of depression, facing six more days of unrelenting rice.

On the third Saturday, he broke—just lost it. Seeing a tray full of delicious food for the patient across the hall, he bolted from his bed and grabbed whatever he could—it turned out to be a hardboiled egg—wolfed it down and, hiding his face with a napkin, snuck back to his bed, hoping no one saw him.

Not to be. A nurse reported the event to Kempner. When we made rounds the next morning, the CEO pinched his brow, squinted his eyes, squirmed, fidgeted in his bed, and looked everywhere but at Kempner. Kempner seemed oblivious, aloof, glaring down at him.

Finally, the patient couldn’t stand it any longer and asked his one question. “Dr. Kempner, how…um, how…um, how was my urine?” he finally blurted.

Kempner stared him in the eye and without a moment’s hesitation, said, “Urine? Your urine had one hard boiled egg in it!” He then spun on his heels and stalked out, leaving the patient aghast, his mouth open.

The man checked out of the hospital that afternoon and returned to New York on the first flight out of Durham.

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I find such antiquities fascinating. Of similar interest is Petra, capital of the Nabataean Arabs around the sixth century B.C, and center of the spice trade. It lies in Wada Araba, a valley in Jordan running from the Dead Sea to the Aqaba Gulf. Its entrance is a crack in a sheer rock wall barely large enough to squeeze through, like saying Open Sesame, and crossing into another world beyond. Magnificent buildings, rose-colored edifices intricately sculpted into the sandstone cliffs, are incredible. They served as the backdrop for the 1989 movie, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade, and the final chapters of my novel The Black Widows, during which the hero, Zach Dayan, chases the leader of a terrorist group before he commits an incredible act of sabotage.

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An introduction to The Black Widows read by Doug Zipes

The post An introduction to The Black Widows – Read by Doug Zipes appeared first on Doug Zipes.