Calling of an Angl: Rene Caisse and Essiac Tea--4by Dr. Gary L. Glum |
|
CHAPTER FOURIn late August, 1938, six physicians with expertise in diagnostics, surgery and radiology were named as the members of the Royal Cancer Commission. The chairman was Mr. J.G. Gillanders, an Ontario Supreme Court Justice. They were charged with investigating several different unorthodox cancer treatments in use in Canada in the late 30s, but the focus was clearly on Rene Caisse and Essiac. For the last few months of 1938, Rene was busy treating patients at her clinic, while skirmishing with the Commission as it got underway. On October 27, she wrote them a letter declining to turn over her formula before they acknowledged the proof of her work. "I wish to know," she wrote, "whether or not I am to continue my clinic. If you wish me to close, I wish you would notify me to that effect. I do not wish to continue, if I am subject to the penalties of the Kirby Act." The Commission declined her invitation to close her down. They didn't want to get into that routine again. Instead, Dr. B. L. Guyatt, a professor of anatomy at the University of Toronto and an early supporter of Rene's, was informally enlisted as a mediator. He had good relations on both sides. On December 30, 1938, when the Commission was ready to begin its investigation of Rene and Essiac, Dr. Guyatt wrote Rene a long letter saying that she should be confident and cooperate fully in presenting her cases, especially those with "a pathological diagnosis and shown clinical progress with a disappearance in part or wholly of signs and symptoms." Rene wholeheartedly took Dr. Guyatt's advice. That was what she'd really wanted to do all along, anyway: Get those doctors into her clinic and show them what she d been doing. When the Commission announced to the press that two of it's members-Dr. W C. Wallace of Queens University and Dr. T H. Callahan of Toronto-would be going to Bracebridge in February, 1939, to interview Renes patients, Rene told reporters she was "delighted with the arrangement." Accompanied by Dr. Guyatt, the Commission members spent two days conducting the sworn-and secret-testimony of several people who had been treated by Rene. Afterwards, some of the patients told reporters that they had traveled long distances at their own expense to tell their stories under oath. One of them, Mr. George Bruce of Hastings County, was quoted in the Toronto Globe and Mail as saying that he owed his life to Rene Caisse. "I came here all burned up from radium treatments. I was nothing but a withered rat, expecting to die any day. Miss Caisse treated me for six weeks, and now I am 100 percent better." Mrs. J.C. Forsythe, of Utterston, told reporters that she testified that Miss Caisse had initially refused to treat her because she didn't have a copy of her doctor's diagnosis. "Finally Miss Caisse agreed to give me treatments. I was a cripple when I came here, and was at death's door. Now I cook for a big family, do all my own housework and all the other chores that a farm wife has to do. I owe my life to Miss Caisse." Since the hearings were held in secret, Rene refused comment to the press, except to say she was pleased with the Commission's thoroughness and fairness. Privately she told friends that the doctors had examined some of her former patients and admitted to her-and them-that they were now free of cancer. Rene was thrilled at this latest turn of events. But the main event was scheduled for early in March, 1939. Public hearings before the full Commission were to be held at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto. This was what Rene and her patients had been waiting for, and when it came they were ready. So many of her supporters showed up that Rene had to rent one of the hotel's ballrooms as a gathering place. Among those present were 387 former patients, from all over Canada, prepared to wait their turn to be sworn to oath and tell their stories. The Commission wasn't interested in hearing from 387 witnesses. "She's got an army of people here," Commissioner Ualin complained. Ultimately, pleading the pressures of time, the Commission allowed only 49 to testify. The hundreds of pages of transcript of those 49 sworn witnesses is filled with heart-rending testimony. To a person they were convinced that Essiac had helped them to regain their health. Some of them told of partial and continuing recoveries when all else had failed; others described complete, almost miraculous, recoveries after they had been near death. A man named George Mahon testified: "She helped me. If it was not for her, I would be buried." A woman named Elizabeth Stewart testified that her doctor sent her home from the hospital almost two years ago to make out her will. "It won't shorten your days," she said the doctor told her, "and it won't lengthen them." Now, after treatment by Nurse Caisse: "I'm working every day. I milk five cows, night and morning. I'm right off the farm and have boarders and all in the house, and I have to do it all myself. I owe my life to Miss Caisse and I hope you will do something for her." A woman named Augusta Douglas had a diagnosis by a pathologist, dated August 5, 1938: Cancer of the cervix. She was told she needed radium treatments. She told the doctor shed rather die. "With my boots on," she said. "Thank God I had enough will power. I fought the doctors and I am still." She recalled arriving in Bracebridge for her first treatment by Rene Caisse. "I went on a bed made in the back of the car on a mattress with a feather tick folded on it, and I could stand no jolting of the car or I would get this terrible pain in my back." She spent six weeks flat on her back in bed in Bracebridge, having treatments. "As I lay in my bed I could see the clinic on the hill and it reminded me of the Cross on the hill of Calvary. I know you men do not care anything about this but just the same it was the only ray of hope I had in the world." Gradually she improved. She started taking walks. After eight weeks she was able to make the 220-mile round-trip drive to Bracebridge every Saturday. She testified that her doctor told her: "If that is what she has done with a few, keep on taking her treatments. They are marvelous. They are worth a million." Clara Thornbury weighed 72 pounds when her husband carried her into Rene's clinic. Now she weighed 107 pounds and did her own housework. Annie Bonar's cancer spread after radium treatments. Weighing 90 pounds the night before she was to check into the hospital to have her arm-swollen to twice its natural size-amputated, she decided to see Rene Caisse instead. Four months later, she was back to her normal weight of 150 and her arm was Ok. One witness after another told stories like that. But perhaps the most dramatic-and moving-testimony was offered, in vivid and often horrifying detail, by a woman named May Henderson. After 30 years of chronic ill health, she was told by her doctors that her whole body was riddled with cancer. They would have to remove both her breasts and most of her insides. She wasn't up to the torture of that, she decided, and basically gave up on living. "My eyes just looked like stones," she testified, "and I simply hadn't any life in me. I couldn't walk and by this time I was lying on the chesterfield or else on the bed most of the time. I didrit know just what was ahead of me, but someone told me about Miss Caisse." That was in March, 1937. May Henderson went to see Rene, but Rene couldn't treat her without a written diagnosis. So May Henderson dragged herself to a doctor for another torturous examination. "He said that my condition was such that I was simply full of cancer, and that it was useless for the nurse to treat me because I would not last long anyway." But the doctor gave May Henderson the signed paper she needed. She began the Essiac treatment. "Right away I noticed a wonderful change. I felt more steady and I slept better and I ate better, and altogether I have had about 65 treatments from the nurse. Shortly after I started with her I was able to have temporary work and I might say I never have been inconvenienced by the treatments." Did she regard herself as cured? "Well, pretty nearly." She explained that she still had a small lump on her right side. "It is about the size of a hen's egg, but it is softer than it used to be, and in the left side there is still some of this hard growth, but it is pretty nearly all gone." Commissioner Valin asked if she still had lumps in her breasts. "No," she answered. "They are completely cleared up....The breasts are quite clear now When I first started with the nurse I looked as if I were pregnant, my body was so full of it, and it had pushed everything else out of its position, and now I think anyone would agree my figure just looks about normal. I feel as if it is normal." (In Rene's files are several friendly letters from May Henderson, dated all the way into the 1970s, and always thanking Rene and encouraging her in her good work. ) The commissioners repeatedly questioned the accuracy of the diagnoses related by the witnesses. They said that some of the doctors involved had later denied diagnosing these people as having cancer. Rene's lawyer, Edward Murphy, at one point ridiculed that argument, saying that not even the most careless doctor sent people home from the hospital with two weeks to live without being reasonably certain of his diagnosis. Hinting at pressures on doctors to disavow their original diagnoses, Murphy said: "If this matter is done so sloppily, there should probably be a commission to investigate that." These people were told they had cancer, he argued, no matter what some of the doctors were now trying to say. Near the end of the hearings, Dr. B.L. Guyatt-the anatomist from the University of Toronto-was allowed to testify about what he had seen at Rene's clinic. "I first became interested three years ago this fall," he said. "It was brought to my attention by a doctor who was a friend of mine, a prominent man." Since then Dr. Guyatt had made periodic visits to Bracebridge. "I have not had the time or the apparatus to make a check such as I would like to have made, but I saw patients come in, in very bad shape, and the next time I went along I found improvement in a number of those cases." That happened on at least three of his visits to the clinic, Dr.Guyatt testified. "I was so impressed that I brought the matter to the attention of Dr. Routley of the Canadian Medical Association, later asking that some investigation be made into this form of treatment. That's how impressed I was." Continuing to follow the progress of a number of Rene's patients suffering from what he believed was cancer, Dr. Guyatt said they had definitely improved. "I would not say they are cured. I would not use that statement, because a cure of cancer means 5 years, and even then you are not sure. But certainly there has been a great benefit in those cases." When Dr. Guyatt finished his testimony, Chairman Gillanders told Rene's lawyer that it was time to get on the record with Rene s position about revealing her formula to the Commission. "We have heard more case histories from Miss Caisse than from any other sponsor," he said. "She is the only sponsor, I think now, who has not been willing to disclose her formula." Murphy said her position was the same as it had always been. "She would like the Commission, having heard this evidence, to pass upon it, and she will quite willingly abide by that decision." "In other words," the chairman responded, "she is not prepared to give her formula?" "No." Then the chairman summarized his own position: "What she is asking us to do is to pass on the case histories she has given us, without the Board having any knowledge of what the substance contains, or the theory of its operation or administration." "Exactly," Murphy said. After a long debate between Murphy and the commissioners about Rene's refusal to reveal the formula, Commissioner Ualin said: "You are seriously, I think, prejudicial to your cause in not revealing the formula. We may be favorably impressed. We don't know As far as we have gone, we cannot tell. There may be something in it, as Dr. Guyatt says. He thinks it is something which should be investigated further. That is what he suggested, to have some independent investigator go ahead, and he appeals to the Ontario Medical Society to have it investigated.
"That is his impression, and he is a disinterested party. He is not
biased. We feel we should like to pursue our observations further, and
that is the reason why we want the formula." "Yes, I do," Murphy said. "We will advise you when the next meeting is to be held," the chairman said. "That is the best thing to be done," Murphy responded. "It is understood we are through hearing Miss Caisse's cases?" Commissioner Young asked. "Oh, yes, that is closed," Murphy said. "Definitely," the chairman agreed. And with that, the testimony of Rene's witnesses was concluded. A few weeks later, near the end of March, came the testimony from the other side, the doctors. A Dr. Richards and Dr. R.T. Noble, the registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, presented signed documents from several doctors saying that former patients of theirs had not benefited from Rene Caisse's treatments and had since died. Rene was present as Dr. Richards and Dr. Noble damned her with all the evidence they could find. One of her patients who had died was named William Allen. After listening to the doctors proclaim that Mr. Allen had not benefited from Essiac, Rene responded: "Mr. Allen came to me with a tube in his bladder, and in a very bad condition, and they had no hope for him at all. A great number of these cases are hopeless cases, who came to me perhaps for treatment, and I tell the family-I did not tell the patient-but I tell the family that it is hopeless, and I cannot hope to do anything other than possibly give them comfort. If they care to take a few treatments they do so, and if they go away and die, then these records go against me." Commissioner Valin challenged Rene: "Apparently you say you cannot cure an advanced case." "No, I did not say that. If the organs are destroyed, yes. I cannot build new bodies."
Dr. Richards introduced as evidence the August 10, 1937, death of a man
named Richard Patterson. Rene responded: "His doctor gave him three days
to live when I took him, and he lived a year and a half." Dr. Richards produced the case of one of his former patients who had ceased radium treatments in favor of Rene's clinic and later died. Renes answer to his accusation was: "She was dying when she came to me. She weighed about 83 pounds. She had been burned deeply with radium. You could hear her breathing through a big hole in her chest, to the bone, and when she breathed, a whistling came through the outside, and she was given up by Dr. Richards. They could not give her any more radium. "She had no other treatment, and I took her out of pity, and she lived for two or three years, in fair comfort. The burn healed, and she gained weight. I think she weighed about 118 pounds. She was fairly comfortable, to the end, and I feel quite proud of my treatment." A few of the reports from physicians actually admitted that their former patients claimed to have received benefit from Essiac, most notably pain relief. Even in this hostile accumulation of reports, the theme of pain relief was heard again. But in these post-mortem reports from doctors, it was usually mentioned briefly and in passing, as if a patient's relief of pain was not the point; the point was discrediting Rene Caisse. It was a brutal experience for Rene, listening to these doctors lay waste to any notion of possible benefit coming out of Essiac. Finally she said to the commissioners: "Dr. Noble and Dr. Richards are both bringing up a lot of patients whom I took through pity's sake. They are not taking up my proven cases, which have benefited. A great number of these patients came for one or two treatments, and never came back, and I could not save them. I did not want to take them at all, because I knew the cases were hopeless. Every case was given up by the medical profession before I even took it." At the end of this stage of the Commission hearings, the commissioners once again asked Rene for her formula. Once again, she told them that she did not want the formula taken from her and immediately shelved as worthless. "I want to know that suf fering humanity will benefit by it. When I can be given that assurance, I am willing to disclose my formula, but I have got to know that it is going to get to suffering humanity." Chairman Gillanders said he wouldn't admit any merit before receiving the formula. Rene said they didn't have to admit it publicly; just admit it privately. "I feel that I am entitled to your decision on the merits of it, before I give it." "In other words," Gillanders said, "you are not prepared now to give the Commission the formula?" "No, I am not." "You will, however, submit whatever comments you have on this evidence?" "Yes, I will be very glad to do that." Rene did later respond in detail to the charges that many of her patients had since died. But the overall burden of the hearings had taken a heavy toll on her-physically, emotionally and financially. She had taken her fight as far as any one person with such limited financial resources could have taken it. Amid publicity and pressure, the Canadian parliament had been forced to debate about Essiac-and had come within three votes of legalizing it. She had mobilized what Commissioner Ualin complained of as "an army of people" to rally support. And now that the battle appeared to be winding down, her exhaustion and despair-even bitterness-was apparent in a powerful letter that she fired off to Premier Hepburn on April 19, 1939, a few weeks after the testimony of Dr. Noble and Dr. Richards. "I have submitted a large number of histories of cancer patients to them," she wrote. "They then demanded cases pathologically proven, where no other treatment had been used. I was just able to present two of these cases cured, as the majority of my cases have tried everything Medical Science has to offer before coming to me. I have many proven cases cured who have had other treatment before coming to me. "Dr. Richards maintains that though long periods have elapsed between the time of the radium treatments and my treatments (even though recurrences have appeared) that the radium is still working on them and is responsible for the cure, but if the patient dies, radium has nothing to do with it. "Now they are demanding that I give an account of every patient I have been unfortunate enough to lose. Not taking into consideration the fact that these patients are dying before they ever come to me and are given up by the medical profession as hopeless. I am trying to do this to the best of my ability, but one might just as well ask a doctor why one operation is successful and another one fatal. He will say that the case was too far advanced or that the patient had a weak heart. This is the answer I will be compelled to give in some cases. "The Committee that came to my clinic, on examining my patients, did not hesitate to tell patients that they were cured, patients that I was still treating. They seemed perfectly satisfied, even enthusiastic, over what they saw I gave them the pathological proof of one case that had not been treated elsewhere, and is absolutely clear of cancer. "I gave a copy of this pathological proof to the court stenographer to give copies to each one of the Royal Cancer Commission, and at the last sitting of the committee none of them had copies of this pathological report, and Dr. Callahan did not remember seeing it. I have since sent registered copies to the secretary of two such cases. "Now, I do not mind trying to comply with their request. It is putting me to a lot of expense which I cannot afford, for though I am accused in some of the letters Dr. Noble presented against me of taking all the money I could get from people, I have had so little given me that it has been a great struggle to carry on. I asked for a report of the last meeting and they charged me fiftyseven dollars for it. When I tell you that my bank account is not one hundred dollars, you will understand why it is difficult for me to supply all the material the Royal Cancer Commission are asking for, and keep my clinic going. "I am considering seriously closing, God knows I have done my best for these cancer sufferers, but if you had heard Dr. Noble and Dr. Richards pull my work to pieces you would believe me to be a criminal. I had an operation eight weeks ago for bursitis on my arm, which instead of helping me, made my condition worse, and the surgeons cannot account for that. I have had to work at my clinic with my arm in a sling, spending the rest of my time in bed trying to get back the use of my right arm. "If you can in any way shorten this investigation, I will appreciate it very much. I feel they have enough material to make a decision one way or the other. I have gotten beyond the stage where I care which way they decide. If you could read the testimonials sent to Dr. Noble by members of the profession, their denial of their own diagnoses, and their suggestions on how to convict me of illegal practice, you would see that they have no intention of being fair. If Dr. Richards had to give an account of the number of patients who die under radium and deep X-ray treatments he would have work to do for the rest of his life. "Dr. Noble put in a list of patients who signed a petition to you in 1937, with two hundred and ten names of patients who claimed to have benefited by my treatment. He handed this to the Royal Cancer Commission saying that most of these were dead. There are thirty-two of these dead, one of these was killed in an automobile accident, several went back for radium treatment when I closed my clinic last May, two had amputations after leaving me and died, one hundred and seventy-eight are living. I do not think this is a bad percentage. "I am sorry to trouble you about this, but I am going down to see Dr. Lewis today, and with my arm in the condition it is, I may be ordered to bed for an indefinite period and I want you to know that I have complied with every demand of the Royal Cancer Commission." But the Commission's investigations dragged on for months. Rene kept her clinic open, but she was dogged with problems and feeling as though she was being left hanging, not knowing what was coming. On November 2, 1939, she fmally made a plea directly to the Minister of Health, Harold Kirby. "I am writing to ask if there isn't some way that you can speed up the report from the Royal Cancer Commission on my cancer discovery," she wrote to him. "It seems to me that they have had ample time to decide for or against my treatment. I have put before them more evidence than any other sponsor. They admitted this in my presence at the last meeting on July 4th. If they have decided against it I have other plans and am anxious that they should make their decision one way or the other. "The doctors have in a body refused to give any diagnosis of a case coming to me. I have people visiting my clinic begging for treatment and as you know I cannot take them without their doctor's diagnosis. Would it be possible for you to give me permission to treat any patient who came to me stating that his or her doctor told them that they had cancer, and to have them sign a statement to that effect? I would appreciate your opinion on this matter." In December, 1939, the Commission delivered its Interim Report to parliament. Limiting itself to ruling on the cases of the people who had testified in support of Rene and Essiac, the Commission dismissed several of the diagnoses of cancer as incorrector had letters from doctors disavowing the diagnosis. Other cases were ruled cured by previous treatments with radium or X-ray. "In the 49 cases presented there were only 4 in which the diagnosis was accepted and in which recovery occurred apparently from Miss Caisse s treatment," the report stated. But even in those four cases, the report went on, the Commission later received signed statements calling into question the validity of the cure. In one, for instance, the report stated: "The Commission now has a signed statement from the surgeon to the effect that the growth he removed was not cancer." It was a tortuously written report designed to deny any credit at all to Rene and Essiac. Implicit in it-though not stated-was that all 49 witnesses were somehow mistaken about their own cases. The report implied that "out of this large practice" of Rene's, only these 49 people stepped forward-completely ignoring the fact that another 3 3 8 people waiting in the ballroom were denied the opportunity to testify. The report concluded: "After a careful examination of all the evidence submitted, and analysed herewith, and not forgetting the fact that the patients, or a number of them, who came before the Commission felt that they had been benefited by the treatment which they received, the Commission is of the opinion that the evidence adduced does not justify any favourable conclusion as to the merits of `Essiac' as a remedy for cancer, and would so report." Having dismissed Rene and Essiac, the Commission made one final attempt to persuade her to turn over the formula. In the last paragraph, the report said: "If, however, Miss Caisse is desirous of having her treatment further investigated, and wishes to submit thereon further evidence, and is prepared to furnish the Commission with the formula of `Essiac,' together with samples thereof, the Commission will be glad to make such investigation, in such manner as is deemed desirable and warranted." From the beginning, the commissioners had often said that they only wanted to investigate remedies that might hold some promise. They were physicians themselves and they didn't mind saying on the record that they had better things to do with their time-and the Commission's budget-than to pursue worthless remedies. And yet, at the end, in the paragraph after they tried to write off Essiac for once and for all, there it was again: We want the formula. But why? The contradiction would seem to be readily apparent. On January 11, 1940, after the report had been approved in parliament, it was released to the Canadian press, which gave it heavy coverage. It was front page news. One newspaper quoted Rene: "The Commission would not consider any recovery due to Essiac unless there had been no other treatment previously taken. I have been obliged to treat so many cases sent to me by doctors after everything in medical science had been used ineffectively I have not been allowed to take a cancer case without a doctor's diagnosis, and in the majority of cases, a doctor will not give me a diagnosis unless he considers the patient beyond the help of medical science." Four days later Rene wrote an angry letter to Premier Hepburn. "I received a copy of the Royal Cancer Commission's report on my work. In spite of the fact that they slashed my evidence, I am still the only one of the eighteen applicants who has so much as one cure to their credit. They admit four cures, but they say that in two of these cases they have received sworn statements from the doctors denying their own diagnosis. I think I am entitled to copies of these sworn statements, and I would appreciate it very much if you will personally see that I get them." She concluded: "For the sake of suffering humanity, I am begging you to support my work and again put my bill before the Legislature." Hepburn let Rene's request go by. Two months later, Rene wrote a long letter to one of the local newspapers detailing her criticisms of the Commission's report. The letter filled almost one full page of the newspaper, showing how the Commission had belittled the results she had accomplished.
In the case of a man named Peter Hanon, for instance, who had testified
for Rene, the Commission concluded that an accurate diagnosis would have
been "spastic colon," not cancer. After outlining his case at length, Rene
concluded: "He was sent home to die and in such a bad condition and the
end was so near that he was advised to go to a hospital where he would
require special medical care. Nothing could be done for him. The newspaper accompanied Rene's letter with a full page editorial supporting Rene's arguments and mentioning all the area residents who knew with certainty from personal experience that Rene's treatment worked. "Scores of patients volunteered their evidence," the editorial said. "Insistence was made that Miss Caisse disclose her formula. Her refusal to do so was apparently based on the belief that if she did so, the finding would be that it was valueless and then later on the medical profession would discover a treatment for cancer that would be very much like hers. In this way she would lose the credit for all her work and effort and her patients would not be benefited. The report of the Commission on cancer seems to justify the fear that appeared to be in Miss Caisse's mind." And with that farewell, Rene Caisse pretty much disappeared from public view-and public controversy-for almost 20 years. She was now 52 years old. She had fought a battle, lived through turmoil-treating desperately ill people one day, sitting in a roomful of doctors listening to them savage her work the next daythat would have worn down the strongest human being. The Kirby Bill was in force and with the Commission's ruling that Essiac had no merit, there was reason to believe that the government might begin enforcing it against Rene. Nonetheless she kept her clinic open for the time being. She continued to treat patients. A year after the Cancer Commission report, May Henderson dropped her a short note to say that the Essiac still "has magic in it for me." On January 19, 1940, Dr. R.A. White, in a "Dear Madam" note to Rene, wrote: "For your own information and if it is of interest to you, Mrs. Otto Latondress has been suffering from a Squamous celled Carcinoma of the Cervix for about the past year. Yours truly." (Fifteen months later, Otto Latondress swore an affidavit stating that after his wife's treatments by Dr. White, "she weighed ninety-four pounds, and could hardly walk." After forty treatments by Rene Caisse, his wife was fine. "She was examined by Dr. White last Friday, and he found that there was no trace of cancer. ") On April 3, 1940, a few months after war broke out when Hitler invaded Poland, Rene wrote an interesting letter to the general manager of Parke Davis, a huge American pharmaceutical corporation. She wrote: "I have a solution that I use effectively to stop hemorrhaging and have been using this as long as I have been treating cancer. It was brought to my notice how valuable this would be in time of war to treat the soldiers. It will stop any bleeding almost instantly. I have affidavits from many patients to this effect, and if you will read the enclosed circular you will notice that Dr. B.L. Guyatt specially mentions this in regard to my treatment. I wonder if your company would be interested in this, and if you could suggest any way that this could be made available for use in the hospitals overseas, first aid stations, soldiers' kits, etc. "I never thought of this as a separate discovery; it was just a part of my treatment of cancer cases, but now I feel that I should make every effort to make this available to all those who need it." Rene still wanted to help people in any way that she could. During her political battles of the 1930s, she hadn't boasted of, or even claimed, any special solution she had developed to stop hemorrhaging. To her, it was just part of the treatment. But with World War II being fought, her first instinct was that this might have value to wounded soldiers-and she wanted them to have it. It was a touching gesture. But apparently Parke Davis ignored it. There is no record of any response, and Rene never said that she received one. So any value her solution might have had to those wounded soldiers was lost forever. At the same time that she was volunteering her help to the war effort, she was being threatened with arrest for violating the Kirby Act. It was becoming nearly impossible for her to get written diagnoses from doctors, and finally Rene gave up. In 1942, paranoid about being imprisoned and, as she later described it, "in a state bordering on collapse," she officially, and permanently, closed her clinic and left Bracebridge. She moved, or more accurately, retreated--to live quietly in North Bay. It was the end of that era of her life. A vastly different one was about to begin and almost certainly the farthest thing from Rene Caisse's mind was that the new era would end with her and her work with Essiac-once again back in the news. Introduction I 1 I 2 I 3 I 4 I 5 I 6 I 7 I 8 I 9 I 10 I 11 I 12 I 13 I 14 All of the events and characters depicted in this book are non-fictional
Disclaimer - The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
