essiac (es-ee-ak) is a herbal recipe discovered more than seventy years ago by Canadian nurse Rene Caisse.

Ms. Caisse received it from a middle-aged female patient who had obtained it from an Ojibwa Indian Medicine Man. The Medicine Man offered his help to the patient because he knew the woman was suffering from breast cancer. The patient recovered from her cancer and saw no reoccurrence during the span of the next thirty years.

Rene Caisse used the same recipe on her aunt, who was terminally ill with stomach and liver cancer. Her aunt lived another 21 years, eventually dying of old age. Impressed by these sucesses, Ms. Caisse began to offer the formula to anyone who contacted her.

Eventually word of her treatment convinced Dr. Charles Brusch (formerly the physician to the late John F. Kennedy) of the enormous benefits of essiac and the two eventually became research partners. Over the years, many other people with various kinds of illnesses and ailments have told others about the remarkable benefits from the essiac recipe.

Although there is no clinical evidence to support the effectiveness of essiac on cancer or other diseases, it is believed to be beneficial to those suffering from AIDS, Allergies, Arthritis, Alzheimer's, Asthma, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Circulatory problems, Diabetes, Fibroids, Hemorrhoids, Hypoglycemia, Impotence, Malignancies, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson's, Prostate and urinary probles, Psoriasis, Sleeping Disorders, Thyroid Problems, Ulcers, Warts, and more

The following excerpt is taken from the booklet "I Was Canada's Cancer Nurse" written by Rene Caisse, R.N.

During the years I operated my Cancer Clinic in Bracebridge, many doctors, surgeons and scientists visited the clinic, read case histories, examined patients, and watched me administer essiac treatments.

Many of these doctors said they believed my treatment acted upon the glands of the body.

This coincided with a statement made as early as 1926 by Dr. Frederick J. Banting, when he reviewed the work I had done with patients of the first nine doctors.

One of these cases had interested Dr. Denting particularly, since the patient, a middle-aged woman, was a diabetic as well as a cancer victim. Dr. J. A. McInnis of Timmins, Ontario, had asked me to treat this patient for him under his observation.

Not knowing what affect essiac would have on a patient taking Insulin, I didn't want to give s along with Insulin. So Dr. McInnis said he would discontinue the Insulin and I should give essiac for a time. If the diabetic condition worsened, he would go back to Insulin.

To our mutual surprise, the diabetic condition improved with the essiac s, and continued to improve until there wasn't any diabetes at all!

The cancer, at the beginning of treatment, became larger and harder and almost caused an obstruction in the bowel. However, after a few more treatments, it softened and reduced in size until it entirely disappeared. X-ray pictures were taken during the course of treatment, to see what was taking place. The essiac treatments were discontinued after six months of weekly s. The patient continued in good health, with no trace of either cancer or diabetes.

Dr. Banting was greatly impressed with the X-rays and this case history.

"essiac must actuate the pancreatic gland into normal functioning," he said. "Otherwise, the patient would have had to take treatments for the rest of her life, just as she would have had to take Insulin."

It is my conviction that cancer results from a glandular deficiency. essiac is a combination of non-toxic herbs, given by hyperdermics into the muscle and it may also be taken orally.

I believe that it supplies a deficiency of a secretion ordinarily supplied to the human body by a gland of undiscovered origin, which I call "Gland XOX". This gland should supply the body with a secretion which is resistant to cancer tissue. Lack of this secretion allows malignant cancer cells to prey upon and invade healthy cells, and take control of the human body, growing and multiplying until the invasion of the malignant cells into vital organs takes place, stopping the functioning of these organs and causing death.

This deficiency cannot be supplied from the "outside". It must be supplied through the blood stream. essiac supplies this resistive element. The XOX gland starts functioning normally, secreting into the body's living cells the substance required to resist the onslaught of the malignant cells, and thus restores health to the body.

essiac, if given to healthy people, is a blood purifier that stimulates the XOX gland to do its work before there is any chance of malignant cells invading the body. It helped sufferers of malignant diseases for over 50 years; healing and sometimes curing (when given before vital organs are destroyed).

It renews the normal functioning of gland XOX. It sets up a resistance and cuts off the supply of the substance in the human body upon which malignant cells thrive and multiply. This causes the malignant cells to regress within themselves, and gives to healthy cells strength to rebuild themselves.

I believe some people are born with a predisposition to cancer because of a non-functioning XOX gland.

This XOX gland has not been discovered as yet. When it is, the cause of cancer will be known.

essiac acts on all the glands in the human body, as well as this unknown XOX gland. It restores all glands to health and activity. It is my opinion that, just as there is a chain reaction in the nervous and circulatory systems, there is a chain reaction in the glandular system which connects and stimulates all glands, of discovered and undiscovered origin, into normal funotioning. I believe essiac starts this chain reaction on the glandular system.

Cancer has baffled medical science for many, many years. The death rate is increasing by leaps and bounds. After years of research, medical science knows neither the cause nor the cure for cancer. Recurrences after surgery are frequent. Diagnostic methods are completely inadequate.

In 1958, hearings were held in San Francisco by a committee formed to hear testimony on a measure setting up a commission to validate methods of treating cancer, and to define permissible spheres in the treatment of cancer by non-medically affiliated physicians.

In reporting on these hearings, Maurice Natenberg, in his hook, THE CANCER BLACKOUT, quotes Dr. Glen S. Harman, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, a past president of his local surgical society and chief surgeon at the hospital with which he is affiliated.

Among Dr. Harman's observation. during the hearing was this:"A well-trained physician beginning his practice should be capable of diagnosing cancer."

The acceptable diagnosis for cancer by the medical world is to locate the growth by X-ray, then cut out a section of the growth for analysis. This method aggravates the growth into growing more rapidly, and thereby lessens the patient's chance of recovering.

While the medical profession officially believes any young well trained physician should be able to daignose cancer, it quickly recants any such diagnosis if a cure is obtained by other than orthodox, approved methods.

Diagnosis by X-ray is not considered adequate by the medical profession; it must be substantiated by the pathological analysis of a dangerous biopsy. However, I have presented case histories -- and patients -- cured by essiac, with written reports from Government pathologists and the head of the College of Physicians and Surgeons in Toronto, with a pathological diagnosis of cancer, only to have a doctor say, in a public hearing, that even a pathologist could be wrong -- and he was speaking of the Government pathologist -- and that, if my patients were cured by essiac without having been given orthodox treatments earlier, then they had not suffered from cancer. If they had received any of the orthodox treatments -- surgery, radiation, deep X-ray therapy, cobalt, nitrogen mustard gas -- then this earlier treatment, not essiac, should be credited with the cure.

Various studies have been made which establish beyond all doubt that persons diagnosed by reputable physicians as suffering from cancer, but who refuse treatment of all kinds, live at least as long and often longer than patients receiving orthodox treatments considered permissible by ths medical profession.

I believe that radium drives cancer in, instead of out, and burns the surrounding tissue. I believe that radium, used in too heavy doses, is a prolific cause of further cancer in the burnt tissues.

Regardless of Dr. Harman's confidence in the ability of any young physician to diagnose cancer, I feel very few physicians can diagnose it. There are very few symptoms to warn the individual or the doctor in the majority of cases. In many internal afflictions, there are few, if any, noticeable symptoms; in the majority of such cases, the disease is well established or rooted before the doctor or his patient even suspect its presence.

Cancer generally follows the line of least resistance. It does not cause pain or even inconvenience in its early stages until it invades an organ, nerve center or the body surface. It may be slow in development; in such cases it is most deceptive and difficult to discover or feel.

Cancer may develop rapidly and make itself felt early, when it can be fairly easily treated. In its rapid growth, however, a few months of progress may make it too late for the surgeon's knife. Then deep X-ray therapy may scatter it to other parts, or radium drive it in or cause further cancer in destroyed tissues.

If the affected part can, in its infancy, be cut out by surgery before the malignancy starts shooting out its fine, spiller-web-like tentacles, a cure can and is sometimes effected. Once it starts to travel to any extent, I believe that any destructive agency applied to the human body can only do more harm.

Where surgery is indicated, I believe essiac can prove of tremendous benefit. By supplying the body with a secretion resistant to the onslaught of malignant cells, it causes the growth to regress within itself. Being localized, the growth can be removed by surgery without cutting into a large area of healthy cells surrounding the growth, and without so much danger of recurrence as in the present-day method of operating.

In a case of cancer of the breast, the primary growth will usually invade the mammary gland of the opposite breast, or the auxilla of both. If essiac is administered either orally or by hypodermic in the forearm, the secondary growth regresses into the primary mass, enlarging it for a time. But when it is all localized, it will loosen and soften, and can then be removed without so much danger of recurrence.

In the case of cancer of the lung, after localizing with essiac treatments, it is advisable to remove the lung along with the growth.

No matter where the malignancy may be in the human body, surgery is more successful after six to eight treatments with essiac. If there is any suspicion that any malignant cells are left after surgery, then essiac should be given once a week for at least three months, supplying the body with resistance to recurrence.

Thousands of drugs are developed in research laboratories every year. Many are widely promoted both with the public and with the medical profession. Many are approved for distribution without prescriptions. Many others are approved for distribution with prescriptions.

Each year some of these drugs are found to be either toxic, or to produce undesirable and sometimes even fatal side reactions. In the tragic case of Thalidomide, it was found that this sedative, widely used in Europe, produced deformities in babies if taken during pregnancy.

Since no evidence has ever been presented at any time by any person, scientist or otherwise, that there is slightest toxicity, or undesirable reaction, to the use of essiac, and evidence has been presented that is overwhelming that it has proved of great benefit, it is difficult for me to understand the reluctance of the medical profession to its use.

essiac goes right to the seat of the trouble. If given to a patient who is ailing, and there is any suspicion of cancer, it causes the growth to localize and is easily found by Fluoroscope or X-ray. If there is no growth, the patient's general condition will improve.

Many cancer cases would not require surgery if essiac were given in early stages of pre-cancer conditions.