The Truth About Essiac
"Essiac" as known in the marketplace today is comprised of 4 herbs: Sheep Sorrel (rumex acetosella), Burdock Root (arctium lappa), Slippery Elm Bark (ulmus fulva), and Turkish Rhubarb Root (rheum palmatum). Thousands know this recipe, as every herbalist on every corner has it, and it is considered to be in the public domain.
"Essiac" began decades ago when a Canadian nurse, Rene Caisse, received a herbal recipe from an elderly female patient, who was in an Ontario hospital where Rene was the head nurse. The recipe she received contained 8 herbs, given to the woman years before by an Ojibwa medicine man. He offered his help, because he knew the woman was suffering from breast cancer. The patient recovered from her cancer and saw no return during the span of the next 30 years. In 1922, she gave Rene the recipe in response to Rene's request that it could possibly help others.
Rene used this ORIGINAL recipe two years later on her aunt, who was terminally ill with stomach and liver cancer. Her aunt recovered and lived another 21 years, dying of old age. Rene and her aunt's doctor began experimenting with the herbal tea and research began on mice. The doctor, Dr. R O Fisher, began using it on his terminally ill patients, and some improved greatly.
Rene and the doctor began to vary the formula. They injected one herb (Sheep Sorrel) and administered the others orally in liquid form. The Indian medicine man and his people never injected it, they simply made a tea, but researchers want to RESEARCH things to find out what makes them "tick", and so Rene became a researcher. Only one herb could be injected, and only into the muscle. It was painful for many very sick people, and many, very emaciated, hardly had any muscles for the injections. This method was used for some years and there were known successes about which stories were written. There were failures too, as many sufferers were so far gone, they had little time left. In others, the disease had damaged vital organs beyond repair.
The formula used varied slightly over the years from the ORIGINAL one that the woman received from the medicine man in 1892. This change happened as patients were monitored and results were seen. In 1959, Rene Caisse went to the Brusch Medical Clinic in Cambridge, Massachusetts to join Dr Charles Armao Brusch, MD, (private physician to President John F Kennedy). She became partners with him with the intent of forming the "Rene Caisse Cancer Research Foundation", a charitable foundation, whose purpose was the utilization of this treatment for cancer in humans. They stayed partners, co-developers and co-owners until her death in 1978 at the age of 91. The formula, as used at that time, was still partly injected, with the rest of the herbs taken orally.
Dr Brusch, a medical doctor of noted background, had developed an interest in other natural forms of healing; the objective always the "well-being" of the patient. He had set-up the first acupuncture clinic to collect research data, and it was operating in his medical clinic when Rene Caisse arrived in 1959. He was the first doctor in the Western hemisphere to initiate a plan similar to Medicare within his clinic for those without money for medical help. He was extremely interested in herbs and their power to heal, which he learned from a long-time friend, a master herbalist from Lathrop, Missouri.
Dr Brusch was not impressed with the injection as it was being used at the time, and further research began. Experiments were done with injectable solutions, each vial containing a different herb in the formula. They failed to isolate a single outstanding herb. Reactions and results were not so good, so the injections were stopped and the medication returned to a larger oral medication. It was proven that best results were obtained by the COMBINATION of the proper active herbs, and not in just one of the herbs. A double blind study was done in which other herbal formulas were used, all of which proved to be inferior.
Some of the positive results obtained were: Cessation of pain, increased appetite (emaciated patients gained weight), improved sleep, feeling of well-being, energy, a noted decrease in depression, anxiety and fear, and a prolongation of life and a decrease of nodular masses. Dr Brusch stated that the herbal tea identified the toxins, gathered them, broke them down, and discharged them.
Through the years some testing was done at noted facilities such as Sloan Kettering, Northwestern University, and Christie Street Hospital in Toronto, as well as many others. However, as Rene Caisse would NEVER give over the full formula, conclusive results remained incomplete. In 1975 she only passed the injectable herb over to Sloan-Kettering to test. They commenced to freeze it - the ONE thing you cannot do with these herbs - and rendered it useless to test. Rene withdrew it immediately from them with disdain.
In 1977, following a lengthy and in-depth article in a national Canadian magazine "Homemaker's", a retired chemist was shown the article, and was fascinated by reading that Nurse Caisse had never given the formula to anyone (other than her partner with whom she worked). He determined that he would go and see her and talk her into releasing the formula to him. He had never heard of the woman before, even though she lived and worked in the same province, and many stories had been written about her. He admitted this on the "Stayin' Alive" talk radio show, when he was being interviewed by broadcaster, Elaine Alexander.
Gradually he increased his proposal to Rene, for she kept turning him down. She had already had 8 large offers over the years to disclose the formula, but always declined, because she believed it would exploited. Finally, he told both Rene Caisse and Dr Brusch that he was going to be financially funded by a large Canadian mining corporation, and that he would open 5 clinics across the country to treat terminally ill cancer patients free of charge, if they would only release the formula to him. Rene and Dr Brusch felt that perhaps this was the last chance to get the herbal tea "out" to the people who needed it the most - the terminal, the hopeless!
When a contract was drawn up on Oct 26th, 1977, there was very little in it for Rene who had given 56 years of her life to this herbal tea. Dr Brusch, who was to share any royalty with Rene, withdrew in this capacity and became only a witness to the signing of the contract. Rene reluctantly passed over a 4 herb formula that day in 1977, as she already had great doubts about what she had been told. Her doubts proved to be true when nothing seemed to be happening and no clinics were ever opened. To this day no royalty has ever been paid from this contract to the "Rene Caisse Estate". She gave it away FREE for 56 years, and has been cheated ever since. THIS CONTRACT WAS MATERIALLY BREACHED.
In 1978 Rene Caisse died. Her "hey-day" was from 1924 to 1942, when she closed her cancer clinic, which she had operated for 8 years in Bracebridge, Ontario. At that time, the medical powers-that-be formed a "Cancer Commission" which had the power to decree what could be used to treat cancer. Rene feared being charged, even though all around her, including many medical doctors, were completely aware of her outstanding successes. Dr Brusch continued to work with the formula they had developed (now called "Flor*Essence" as a trade name in the market place), and many of his patients were the beneficiaries.
In 1984, Dr Brusch was interviewed by a long-time radio producer and broadcaster, Elaine Alexander, who broadcast out of Vancouver, Canada. This woman, as the producer of a highly listened to radio "talk" show, produced a few programmes on this herbal tea in the mid '70's, and had researched it in-depth for many years. In 1984, as a broadcaster, she introduced a new programme called "Stayin' Alive". This show was a health-oriented show concerned with informing the listeners of the best in alternate and more natural ways of restoring health. On this show she again reported on this famous though underrated story.
The listener response was massive and seven 2-hour programmes were produced covering the herbal tea in every aspect. Dr Brusch was interviewed a number of times, as were others of importance to the story. Elaine and Dr Brusch became friends. He was impressed by her long research of the subject, and her genuine interest. In 1988 they became partners legally and he passed to her a number of the herbal formula's on which he and Rene worked at his clinic during the time they were partners and co-owners.
The larger and further developed formula of this herbal tea, now known as "Flor*Essence", was the first out on the marketplace in July 1992. It contains 8 herbs in perfect proportion for synergistic activity. Many imitators have now jumped on the band-wagon with drops, capsules, liquids, and dry versions, all claiming to be "The Original Rene Caisse Tea". In fact the "ORIGINAL" formula has NOT been used since 1924, when Rene Caisse started experimenting with it after curing her aunt. That was when modifications were begun, and an injection was developed. Those claiming otherwise, are simply NOT privy to confidential information and are too new to the scene. Author Unknown
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