BETHELL o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-21 published
BETHELL,
James MacIntosh (1957-2003)
Much loved husband of Laurie and father of Rafe, and well loved
by all Bethells, Titcombs, Wiselys, Greens, Birnies, Skutezkys,
McMasters, MacDougalls, and
MacFarlanes. Jamie died of cancer
in Reno, Nevada on February 19, 2003. Donations may be sent to
your local Cancer Centre or Foundation.
''O Man Greatly Beloved - Fear Not
Peace be unto thee.''
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BETHUNE o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-12-13 published
'What else could it have been but a miracle?'
Rene CAISSE died 25 years ago without gaining the recognition
some cancer survivors believe she deserved. Without Essiac, her
mysterious remedy, they wouldn't be alive today, they tell Roy
MacGREGOR
By Roy MacGREGOR,
Saturday,
December 13, 2003 - Page F8
Bracebridge, Ontario -- These days, when she looks back at her
remarkable, and largely unexpected, long life, Iona
HALE will
often permit herself a small, soft giggle.
She is 85 now, a vibrant, spunky woman with enough excess energy
to power the small off-highway nursing home she now lives in
at the north end of the Muskoka tourist region that gave the
world Norman
BETHUNE and, Iona
HALE will die believing, possibly
something far more profound.
A possible cure for cancer.
Twenty-seven years ago, Mrs.
HALE sat in Toronto's Princess Margaret
Hospital and heard that terrifying word applied to her own pitiful
condition. She was 58, and had already dropped to 75 pounds when
her big, truck-driver husband, Ted, finally got her in to see
the specialists who were supposed to know why she had stopped
eating and was in such terrible pain.
Mrs. HALE remembers awakening in the recovery room after unsuccessful
surgery and being told by a brusque nurse, "You're not going
to live long, you know, dear."
"That's what you think!" she snapped back.
Ted HALE had often heard stories of a secret "Indian" medicine
that an area nurse had supposedly used to cure cancer patients,
but he had no idea where it could be found. He had asked a physician,
only to be told, "That damned Essiac -- there's nothing to it."
When they returned to their home near Huntsville, Ontario --
with instructions to come back in three weeks, if Mrs.
HALE was
still around -- Mr.
HALE set out to find the mysterious medicine.
With the help of a sympathetic doctor, he discovered Rene
CAISSE,
a Bracebridge nurse who claimed to have been given the native
secret back in 1922. Pushing 90 and in ill health, she agreed
to give him one small bottle of the tonic, telling him to hide
it under his clothes as he left.
Mr. HALE fed his wife the medicine as tea, as instructed, and
it was the first thing she was able to keep down. A few radiation
treatments intended to ease the pain seemingly had no effect,
but almost immediately after taking the Essiac, she felt relief.
When the painkillers ran out and Mr.
HALE said he would go pick
up more, she told him, "Don't bother -- get more of this."
Twice more, he returned to get Essiac, the second time carrying
a loaded pistol in case he had to force the medicine from the
old nurse. He got it, and, according to Mrs.
HALE, "the cancer
just drained away." She returned to Toronto for one checkup --
"The doctor just looked at me like he was seeing a ghost" --
and never returned again.
"What else could it have been," Mrs.
HALE asks today, "but a
miracle?"
There is nothing special to mark the grave of Rene
CAISSE.
It lies in the deepening snow at the very front row of St. Joseph's
Cemetery on the narrow road running north out this small town
in the heart of Ontario cottage country, a simple grave with
a dark stone that reads: "
McGAUGHNEY
Rene
M.
(CAISSE) 1888-1978,
Discoverer of 'Essiac,' Dearly Remembered."
On December 26, it will be 25 years since Rene -- pronounced
"Reen" by locals --
CAISSE died. But in the minds of many people
with cancer, the great question of her life has continued on,
unanswered, well beyond her death. Did she have a secret cure
for the disease?
Ms. CAISSE never claimed to have a "cure" for cancer, but she
did claim to have a secret native formula that, at the very least,
alleviated pain and, in some cases, seemed to work what desperate
cancer sufferers were claiming were miracles.
She had discovered the formula while caring for an elderly Englishwoman
who had once been diagnosed with breast cancer and, unable to
afford surgery, turned instead to a Northern Ontario Ojibwa medicine
man who had given her a recipe for a helpful tonic.
The materials were all found locally, free in the forest: burdock
root, sheep sorrel, slippery elm bark, wild rhubarb root and water.
The woman had taken the native brew regularly and been cancer-free ever since.
Ms. CAISSE had carefully written down the formula as dictated,
thinking she might herself turn to this forest concoction if
she ever developed the dreaded disease. She never did, dying
eventually from complications after breaking a hip, but she remembered
the recipe when an aunt was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach
and given six months to live. The aunt agreed to try the tonic,
recovered and went on to live 21 more years.
The aunt's doctor, R.D.
FISHER, was intrigued enough that he
encouraged Ms.
CAISSE to offer her remedy -- which she now called
"Essiac," a reverse spelling of her name -- to others, and by
1926 Dr. FISHER and eight other physicians were petitioning the
Department of Health and Welfare to conduct tests on this strange
brew.
"We, the undersigned," the letter from the nine doctors read,
"believe that the 'Treatment for Cancer' given by nurse R.M.
CAISSE can do no harm and that it relieves pain, will reduce
the enlargement and will prolong life in hopeless cases."
Instead of opening doors, however, the petition caused them to
slam. Health and Welfare responded that a nurse had no right
to treat patients and even went so far as to prepare the papers
necessary to begin prosecution proceedings.
But when officials were dispatched to see her, she talked them
out of taking action, and for years after, officials turned a
blind eye as she continued to disperse the tonic. She made no
claim that it was medication; she refused to see anyone who had
not first been referred by their regular physician; and she turned
down all payment apart from small "donations" to keep the clinic
running.
Her work attracted the attention of Dr. Frederick
BANTING, the
discoverer of insulin, but an arrangement to work together foundered
when he insisted they test the tonic first on mice, and Ms.
CAISSE
argued that humans had more immediate needs.
Her problems with authority were only beginning. A 55,000-signature
petition persuaded the Ontario government to establish a royal
commission to look into her work, but the panel of physicians
would agree to hear only from 49 of the 387 witnesses: who turned
up on her behalf -- and dismissed all but four on the grounds
that they had no diagnostic proof. The commission refused to
endorse Essiac, and a private member's bill that would have let
her continue treating patients at her clinic fell three votes
short in the legislature.
She quit when the stress drove her to the verge of collapse,
moved north with her new husband, Charles
McGAUGHNEY, and dropped
out of the public eye. But not out of the public interest.
"You need proof?" laughs Iona
HALE. "
Just look at me -- I'm still
here!"
Not everyone in the medical establishment dismissed Essiac. Ms.
CAISSE had permitted the Brusch Medical Center near Boston to
conduct experiments after Dr. Charles
BRUSCH, one-time physician
to John Kennedy, inquired about the mysterious cure. Tests on
the formula did show some promise on mice, and the centre eventually
reported: "The doctors do not say that Essiac is a cure, but
they do say it is of benefit." Dr.
BRUSCH even claimed that Essiac
helped in his own later battle with cancer.
Other tests, though, were less encouraging. In the early 1970s,
Ms. CAISSE sent some of her herbs to the Sloan-Kettering Institute
for Cancer Research in Rye, New York but when early tests proved
negative, she claimed Sloan-Kettering had completely fouled up
the preparation and refused further assistance.
Through it all, she refused to disclose her recipe -- until a
rush of publicity after a 1977 article in Homemaker's magazine
persuaded her to hand over the formula to the Lieutenant-Governor
of Ontario for safekeeping and to give a copy to the Resperin
Corporation of Toronto in the hopes that, eventually, scientific
proof would be found.
She died without gaining the recognition some cancer survivors
believe she deserved, and in 1982, the federal government declared
Resperin's testing procedures flawed and shut down further studies.
The story of Ms.
CAISSE's medicine carried on, however, with
more and more people turning to the man who would have been her
member of Parliament to see if he could help.
Stan DARLING lives in the same nursing home as Iona
HALE.
Now
92, Mr. DARLING spent 21 years in Ottawa as the Progressive Conservative
member for Muskoka-Parry Sound. He's remembered on Parliament
Hill for his crusades against acid rain, but of all his political
battles, Mr.
DARLING says nothing compares to his fight to gain
recognition for Rene
CAISSE's mysterious medicine.
"So many people came to me with their stories," he said, "that
I couldn't help but say, 'Okay, there must be something to this.'"
Mr. DARLING put together his own petition, 5,000 names, and went
to the minister of health and argued that so many were now using
Essiac it made sense to legalize it.
His bid failed, but he did persuade the medical bureaucrats to
compromise: If Essiac were seen as a "tea" rather than a "drug,"
it could be viewed as a tonic, and so long as the presiding physician
gave his approval, it could be added to a patient's care -- if
only for psychological reasons. "On that basis," Mr.
DARLING
says, "I said, 'I don't give a damn what you call it, as long
as you let the people get it.' "
The doubters are legion. "There's no evidence that it works,"
says Dr. Christina
MILLS, senior adviser of cancer control policy
for the Canadian Cancer Society. That being said, she says, "There
is also little evidence of harmful side effects from it," but
cautions anyone looking into the treatment to do so in consultation
with their physician.
No scientific study of Essiac has ever appeared in an accepted,
peer-reviewed medical journal. But those who believe say they
have given up on seeing such proof.
Sue BEST of Rockland, Massachusetts., still vividly recalls that
day 10 years ago when her 16-year-old son, Billy, sick with Hodgkin's
disease, decided to run away from home rather than continue the
chemotherapy treatments he said were killing him.
He was eventually found in Texas after a nationwide hunt and
agreed to return home only if the treatments would cease and
they would look into alternative treatments, including Essiac.
No one is certain what exactly cured Billy, but Ms.
BEST was
so convinced Essiac was a major factor she became a local distributor
of the herbal medicine.
Rene CAISSE, she says, "spent a whole life trying to help people
with a product she found out about totally by accident -- and
being totally maligned all her life by the whole medical establishment
in Canada."
In some ways, Ms.
CAISSE has had an easier time in death than
in life. Today, there is a street in Bracebridge named after
her, a charming sculpture of her in a park near her old clinic,
and Bracebridge Publishing has released a book, Bridge of Hope,
about her experiences.
The recognition is largely the work of local historian Ken
VEITCH,
whose grandmother, Eliza, was one of the cancer-afflicted witnesses:
who told the 1939 royal commission: "I owe my life to Miss
CAISSE.
I would have been dead and in my grave months ago." Instead,
she lived 40 more years.
Don McVITTIE, a Huntsville businessman, is a grandnephew of Rene
CAISSE and says she used her recipe to cure him of a duodenal
ulcer when he was 19. Now 71 and in fine health, he still has
his nightly brew of Essiac before bed.
"There's something mentally satisfying about having a glass of
it," he says. "I think of it more as a blood cleanser. That's
what Aunt Rene always said it was. I think she'd be disappointed
it hasn't been more accepted."
"Look," Ken
VEITCH says, "this all started back in the 1920s.
And I've said a number of times that if there was nothing to
it, it would be long gone.
"But there is something to it."
Roy MacGREGOR is a Globe and Mail columnist.
The secret revealed
Debate rages in Essiac circles about the correct recipe. The
most accurate rendition likely comes from Mary
McPHERSON,
Rene
CAISSE's long-time assistant. Ms.
McPHERSON, currently frail
and living in a Bracebridge nursing home, swore an affidavit
in 1994 in which she recorded the recipe in front of witnesses.
It is essentially the same preparation distributed today by Essiac
Canada International, which operates out of Ottawa. The formula
appears below:
61/2 cups of burdock root (cut)
1 lb. of sheep sorrelherb, powdered
1/4 lb. of slipper elm bark, powdered
1 oz. of Turkish rhubarb root, powdered
Mix ingredients thoroughly and store in glass jar in dark, dry
cupboard. Use 1 oz. of herb mixture to 32 oz. of water, depending
on the amount you want to make. I use 1 cup of mixture to 256 oz. of water.
Boil hard for 10 minutes (covered), then turn off heat but leave
sitting on warm plate overnight (covered).
In the morning, heat steaming hot and let settle a few minutes,
then strain through fine strainer into hot sterilized bottles
and sit to cool. Store in dark, cool cupboard. Must be refrigerated when opened.
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BETTMAN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-06-23 published
A remarkable life, and a friend to all
By Eric DUHATSCHEK
Monday,
June 23, 2003 - Page S1
Nashville -- Roger
NEILSON's legacy in hockey will endure because
he coached 1,000 games among eight National Hockey League teams,
because he was an innovator and because he served as a mentor
and a tutor to others during a Hall of Fame career.
But the contributions of
NEILSON, who died Saturday in Peterborough,
Ontario, at 69 after a lengthy battle with cancer, contain a
vibrancy matched by few others because of the countless Friendships
he developed during his lifetime.
The proof of that came in June of last year when a dozen of his
closest Friends organized a tribute to
NEILSON. It was held in
Toronto, a day before the National Hockey League awards dinner,
to make it easier for people to attend, which they did. More
than 1,300 people were there.
NEILSON was responsible for helping several players and coaches
get to the National Hockey League, including Bob
GAINEY,
Craig
RAMSAY and Colin
CAMPBELL, players on the Peterborough Petes
junior team that
NEILSON coached in the 1970s.
Among those who benefited from
NEILSON's guidance was Florida
Panthers coach Mike
KEENAN.
Scotty
BAUMAN/BOWMAN, the Hall of Fame coach,
recalled Saturday how
NEILSON talked him into hiring
KEENAN,
who had also coached the Petes, into running the Buffalo Sabres'
minor-league affiliate in Rochester, New York in the early 1980s.
"Roger didn't have any enemies,"
KEENAN said. "He lived his life
in a principled way. He had a great deal of respect for people
and found goodness in all of them. He was very unique and all
of us were blessed to know him.
"I'm saddened by his passing, but to me, this is a life to be
celebrated, a life that was so influential to many of us."
NEILSON had an endless fascination with the rulebook that forced
the powers in whatever league he happened to be coaching in to
revise and clarify each loophole he probed. For a penalty shot,
he would put a defenceman in the crease instead of a goaltender,
instructing the defenceman to rush the shooter as soon as the
latter crossed the blueline, to hurry him into a mistake.
Once, when his team was already two players short with less than
two minutes remaining in the game,
NEILSON kept sending players
over the boards, getting penalties for delaying the game. The
strategy worked, taking time off the clock and upsetting the
other team's flow. At that stage of the game, it didn't matter
how many penalties
NEILSON's team was taking. If a coach tried
that tactic today, the opposition would be awarded a penalty
shot.
NEILSON, whose last job was as an assistant coach with the Ottawa
Senators, coached his 1,000th National Hockey League game on
the final night of the 2001-02 regular season, temporarily filling
in for Senators head coach Jacques
MARTIN.
NEILSON was involved
with a dozen National Hockey League teams in a series of different
capacities, including his eight different turns as a head coach.
In 1982, he took the Vancouver Canucks to the Stanley Cup final,
his one and only appearance in the championship series as a coach.
The Canucks were swept by the New York Islanders.
It was during that playoff run that
NEILSON placed a white towel
on the end of a stick, a mock surrender to the on-ice officials.
In 1999, NEILSON was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form
of bone cancer, and needed a bone marrow transplant. He also
developed skin cancer, the result of a lifetime of being outdoors,
in the sun, usually in raggedy old shorts and T-shirts, with
a well-worn baseball cap perched on his head.
"He put in an incredible, inspiring fight with an insidious disease,"
said KEENAN, who added that
NEILSON kept in constant contact
with his mother Thelma, after she was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer.
"They found strength in each other. That's the type of individual
Roger was. He'd reach out and touch somebody who needed help.
He was deathly in pain the last few times we spoke, but he would
not let it influence his life."
The high regard for
NEILSON was clear during the tribute for
him last year. Former coach and Hockey Night in Canada analyst
Harry NEALE, who worked with
NEILSON in Vancouver, was the master
of ceremonies. But he was so overcome by emotion so many times
that he let his good friend Roger steal the show.
NEILSON's self-deprecating sense of humor surfaced when he scanned
the crowd and suggested that everyone he'd ever said hello to
in his lifetime had turned up for the event. He quipped that
at $125 a ticket, it must be an National Hockey League production.
What other organization would set the price so outrageously high?
NEILSON's health was deteriorating this spring, but he managed
to accompany the Senators on the road for their second-round
series against the Philadelphia Flyers. The Senators pushed the
eventual Stanley Cup champions, the New Jersey Devils, to seven
games in the Eastern Conference final before being eliminated.
NEILSON's speech to the team before Game 6, with the Senators
trailing 3-1 in the series, was cited by the players and the
coaching staff as the inspiration for their comeback against
the Devils.
"The only sad part is we weren't able to win a Stanley Cup for
him this year," Martin said.
With his health failing,
NEILSON asked
BAUMAN/BOWMAN to be the keynote
speaker at his annual coaching clinic in Windsor earlier this
month.
"I talked to him only a week ago,"
BAUMAN/BOWMAN said. "I said, 'The
coaches in the National Hockey League are getting blamed a lot
for the [defensive] style that teams are playing.' I said, 'You
should blame Roger
NEILSON because he's the one training all
these coaches.'
"Roger was a special person. The people that follow hockey know
what he went through. I truly think he battled it right to the
end and it was hockey that probably kept Roger going." eduhatschek@globeandmail.ca
Remembering Roger
NEILSON
"The coaches in the National Hockey League have been getting
blamed a lot for the style of game the teams are playing. I said,
'You should blame Roger
NEILSON because he's training all these
coaches.' "He battled right to the end. Hockey and life for Roger
were intertwined. That probably kept him going to the end. He
never got married. He was married to hockey."
Scott BAUMAN/BOWMAN
"All the awards he won this year tell you about his hockey career's
innovativeness and what kind of person he is. Some people are
going to remember Roger for nothing to do with hockey just because
of what a humanitarian he is. He put up an unbelievable battle.
From when he found out how sick he was, if had happened to most
people, they would have had their demise many months ago. He
fought hard."
Jim GREGORY
"I know I haven't met a person who could equal Roger's passion
for hockey. The honours bestowed on him in the past year, the
Hockey Hall of Fame and the Order of Canada, did not come by
accident. He has done so much for so many kids and I will always
remember that legacy."
Harry NEALE
"He's an individual we can all be inspired by, by his ability
to deal with some difficult situations in his own life. He has
such a high level of respect for human beings. "He was fortunate
in way he lived his life. It was impacted by his faith and his
religion. He observed those principles on a daily basis, things
most of us have a hard time dealing with. He saw the goodness
in everyone else."
Mike KEENAN
"He did a lot of work at the grassroots level with his hockey
camps, coaches' clinics, his baseball teams, his summer programs.
He wasn't really in it for himself very much. "It's a word you
use too often to make it special but in his case he was unique,
he really was."
Bob GAINEY
"Hockey has lost a great mind, a great spirit, a great friend.
The National Hockey League family mourns his loss but celebrates
his legacy -- the generations of players he counselled, the coaches
he moulded, the changes his imagination inspired and the millions
of fans he entertained."
Gary BETTMAN
Life and times
Born: June 16, 1934, in Toronto.
Education: Roger
NEILSON graduated from McMaster University in
Hamilton with a degree in physical education.
Nickname: Captain Video because he was the first to analyze game
videos to pick apart opponents' weaknesses.
Coaching career:
NEILSON coached hockey teams for 50 years. He
was a National Hockey League coach for Toronto, Buffalo, Vancouver,
Los Angeles, the New York Rangers, Florida, Philadelphia and
Ottawa. The Senators let him coach a game on April 13, 2002,
so he could reach 1,000 for his career. He was an National Hockey
League assistant in Buffalo, Chicago, St. Louis and Ottawa.
Major Honours: Elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in the builders
category last year. Invested into the Order of Canada in May.
Tributes: ESPN Classic Canada will air a 24-hour tribute to
NEILSON
beginning today at 6 p.m. eastern daylight time. The programming
will include a profile, footage from the famous white towel game
during the 1982 Stanley Cup playoffs and his 1,000th game behind
the bench.
Funeral:
Services for
NEILSON will be held at 2 p.m., Saturday
at North View Pentecostal Church in Peterborough, Ontario (705-748-4573).
The church is at the corner of Fairbairn Street and Tower Hill
Road.
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