In 1922, when a patient claimed her breast cancer had been cured by an Ojibwa medicine man, Rene Caisse, a public
health nurse from Ontario, Canada became interested in learning the herbal formula for the tea. After obtaining the
recipe, she is reported to have successfully cured her aunt's stomach cancer. Two years later, Caisse opened a cancer
clinic and began treating thousands of patients with the tea, which she named Essiac, Caisse's name spelled backwards.
In 1977, one year before her death, Cassie gave the formula for the tea to a Toronto manufacturer, with a promise that the tea be sold at an affordable price to cancer patients. The original formula for Essiac included burdock root, slippery elm inner bark, sheep sorrel and Indian rhubarb root. Watercress, blessed thistle, red clover, and kelp were later additions to the formula and sold as Flor Essence.
