Essiac is a mixture of herbs. It contains Burdock root, the bark of the slippery elm tree, Turkish rhubarb, and sheep sorrel. It is sold through mail order houses and as a dietary supplement in health food stores.
Promoters claim it can cure cancer and other diseases.
Rene Caisse, a nurse in Ontario, Canada, learned about Essiac in 1922. Essiac is Caisse's name spelled backwards. Caisse claimed to have heard about it from a hospital patient who claimed that an Indian medicine man had given her the recipe. The woman said it cured her breast cancer. As the story goes, Caisse was so impressed that she treated her aunt's stomach cancer with the recipe.