James Summerwill 'cured' of cancer by Essiac

Rene Caisse was a nurse at Bracebridge, Ontario. On one occasion she met a patient who claimed to have been cured of cancer by a herbal remedy given her by an Indian herbalist. From 1922 onwards until her death in 1978 Rene offered this remedy, which she called Essiac ('Caisse' backwards), to hundreds of cancer sufferers. One of these was James Summerwill. Rene's story is told in detail on the website http://the7thfire.com/HN/Essiac.htm. Here is an extract from Chapter 3:

A woman named E.A. Tarzwell from Milton, Ontario read about Rene in a newspaper that published a letter from one of Rene’s patients, James Summerwill, a notary public in Sprucedale, Ontario. Mrs. Tarzwell wrote directly to Mr. Summerwill to find out more. These were strangers corresponding about matters of life and death, and there was no reluctance, no equivocation, in what Mr. Summerwill wrote back to Mrs. Tarzwell, based on his own experience.
”As we have passed through the ordeal which you are now experiencing,” he wrote to her, “our sincere sympathy is yours. But let me assure you that you have no cause to worry over more than the actual suffering of your husband, providing that the trouble is not too much advanced, if he is taking Miss Caisse’s treatment and follows her instructions completely.”
He told of his case. He was suffering from “the most malignant type of cancer known.” Dr. Faulkner, Premier Hepburris Minister of Health in the previous cabinet, had personally told him that Dr. Faulkner had never heard of anyone being cured of Mr. Summerwill’s type of cancer. Mr. Summerwill’s doctors told him that surgery was the only hope. He refused the surgery and got his doctor to write the necessary consent letter to allow Rene to treat him.
”I took 28 treatments in all, weekly, 1 treatment until the last 2 which was 1 treatment semi-weekly. My cancer was in the left groin. From the Sth treatment I could notice a slight improvement at the end of each week, which gave me a little encouragement, and I persevered and gained very slowly but surely. I took my last treatment 24th June, 1936, and have been feeling fine ever since and able to look after my work from that time. But of course I had to take things easy for quite a while in order not to put too much strain on the parts that had been afflicted.”
Mr. Summerwill concluded his letter: “At this time there is not the least sign of a return of the trouble. I take the time and trouble to answer a very large number of letters along the same line as yours for the reason that I would like everyone suffering that terrible affliction to receive at least relief and a 90% chance of a cure.”
He attached to his letter a carbon copy of his doctor’s diagnosis: “Lymphosarcoma.”
[James died in 1938, soon after writing this.]

In 1935 Rene opened a cancer clinic. By 1938 she was at the centre of a public controversy about her claims. Opposed to her were the medical establishment and government officials, concerned that a nurse was practicing medicine and that the remedy had not been scientifically proven.But she had a large number of supporters, especially among those who felt they had benefited from Essiac, and including a number of doctors, who petitioned the Canadian government to allow her to practise. A Bill to permit this was lost in Parliament by just three votes. In 1941 she was forced to close the clinic, but later it was allowed to reopen and thereafter she was permitted to treat patients whom doctors had certified as terminally ill. She never publicised the formula of her remedy, so it was never fully tested scientifically. Before her death she sold the formula and name to a manufacturer, but the company produced a poor product that did not sell. Essiac has become a generic name for a herbal tea that it still being sold by various herbalists. The main ingredients are burdock, slippery elm, sheep sorrel, and turkey rhubarb.