The Story of ESSIAC® byRene M. Caisse, R.N.

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Tenants in my apartment house in Toronto objected to my numerous visitors -- the 30 or more daily patients. Besides I could no longer afford to carry on in the city any longer because I had given up nursing. I made no charge for my treatments and depended entirely on occasional voluntary contributions. I felt I could live less expensively in a smaller town, so I went to Timmins, thinking I would go back to nursing. However, Dr. J.A. McInnis (who signed the petition in 1926 and had seen my work in Toronto) asked me to treat cancer patients for him, which I did with very good results.

I later moved to Peterborough, east of Toronto, and lived in a rented house, where I was no sooner moved in than the College of Physicians and Surgeons sent a health officer to issue a warrant for my arrest, again the charge was "practising medicine without a licence". I have lost count of the number of times I have been threatened with arrest and imprisonment for treating patients with ESSIAC.

The health officer talked to me and some of my patients and then told me: "I am not going to issue this warrant; I am going back to talk to Dr. Noble, my chief." Dr. R.J. Noble was head of the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The next day I wrote to The Hon. Dr. J.A. Faulkner, the Minister of Health, and asked for a hearing. I received a letter granting me a hearing on the following Monday at 2 p.m. I got in touch with doctors who had sent patients to me, and five of them together with 12 patients went with me to the hearing. We were received very graciously at Queens Park by Dr. Faulkner, his Deputy Minister The Hon. B.T. McGee and other doctors of National Health and Welfare.

After I presented my cases, Dr. Faulkner said that I could carry on, provided the patients came with their doctor’s written diagnoses, and that I did not make a charge.

"My only ambition, I told Dr. Faulkner, is to prove ESSIAC on its merit, and make it acceptable to the medical profession. So I started back for Peterborough, very proud and happy that I could continue to help patients. The look of gratitude I saw in their eyes when relief from pain was accomplished, and the hope and cheerfulness that returned when they saw their malignancies reduced, was pay enough for all my efforts.

I had faith that if I trusted in God and did my best, a way to support my work would be found. I remembered our St. Joseph’s Church in my home town of Bracebridge, Ontario, and the window in it dedicated to the memory of my mother, Frizelda (Potvin) Caisse. She and my father raised their eight girls and three boys to love and fear God, and to believe that respect and love of our fellow man were more important than riches.

I never dreamed of the opposition and the persecution that would be my lot in trying to help suffering humanity with no thought of personal gain.

I have never claimed that my treatment cures cancer -- although many of my patients and the doctors with whom I have worked, claim that it does. My goal has been control of cancer, and alleviation of pain. Diabetes, pernicious anemia and arthritis are not curable; but with insulin, liver extract and adrenal cortex extracts, "incurables" live out comfortable, controlled life spans.

Cancer patients were successfully treated by me for over 25 years using ESSIAC hypodermically and orally. Since I am a nurse and not a physician, I never gave the treatment until I had written diagnosis of cancer signed by a qualified doctor. I administered my treatment under the observation of doctors.

A few days after the hearing before the Department of National Health and Welfare, Dr. Albert Bastedo, of Bracebridge, called me. He had sent a patient to me with cancer of the bowel, and was greatly impressed with the results of my treatment. He told me he had gone before the Bracebridge Town Council and had asked that they offer me the old British Lion Hotel building to be used as a cancer clinic, if I would return to my home town to practice. He persuaded me to accept this offer.

The Mayor and the Council of Bracebridge were very enthusiastic about getting the clinic started. With the help of friends, relatives and patients, I furnished an office, dispensary, reception room and five treatment rooms.

From 1934 to 1942 I paid the Council the sum of $1.00 per month for the building and there was a large "CANCER CLINIC" sign on the door. I treated thousands of patients who came from far and near, most of them given up as hopeless after everything in medical science had failed. Some arrived in ambulances, receiving their first treatments lying down in an ambulance; after a few treatments they walked into the clinic without help.

I had absolute faith that I could accumulate enough proof of results obtained with different types of cancer, as demanded by the Cancer Society, the medical profession would eventually be glad to accept ESSIAC as an approved treatment.

I did not know then of an organized effort to keep a cancer cure from being discovered, especially by an independent researcher not affiliated with any organization supported by private or public funds. Tremendous sums have been raised and appropriated for official cancer research during the past 50 years, with almost nothing new or productive discovered. It would make these foundations look pretty silly, if an obscure Canadian nurse discovered an effective treatment for cancer!

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