Medicine: Milkweed

In Guatemala, the women of all classes know an ancient secret learned from the Indians: an herbal tea made from ixbut (rhymes with fish-boot) increases the flow of mother’s milk.

As a youth on his father’s plantation, Manuel Serrano was fascinated by all the stories and legends he heard about ixbut. There was the tall tale of a 60-year-old woman who had not borne a child for 18 years; when her daughter died in childbirth, she took ixbut and had no trouble nursing her grandchild. There was the even taller tale of an Indian father who took ixbut and nursed his motherless infant himself.

Back from Germany in 1942 with doctorates in natural science and chemistry, Serrano taught at Guatemala City’s San Carlos University and spent his spare time studying ixbut. Last week he had finished a 14-month series of experiments (in which Guatemala physicians cooperated) under contract for Merck & Co., and was busy writing his report.

Grown best in the shade at 2,000 feet, ixbut (Euphorbia lancifolia) is a plant which exudes milky sap. It has dark green leaves marked with a white “V.” The strength and dosage of ixbut are remarkably uniform: take five leaves or five sections of stem (about five grams) to brew a cup of tea; drink six cups a day.

Serrano made controlled experiments on 1,800 women who had trouble nursing: 50% could not nurse at all without ixbut, but did well with it; 35% who could nurse only a little showed marked improvement with ixbut. The 15% who got no benefit were mostly nervous types. But Serrano found the same proportion of failures among goats which, he insists, were not nervous. Animals also give the lie to scoffers who say that the effect of ixbut is psychosomatic. Dairymen report that ixbut doubles the milk production of their cows.

“I am now convinced,” concludes Serrano, “that ixbut increases milk flow. By analysis, I know that this increment is actually milk and not water, as I originally suspected. We must still isolate the agent that causes the increase [a project which Merck & Co. will work on] and learn how it works.” Serrano could rule out the milk-producing hormone prolactin: it did not enable his wife to nurse her four babies. But ixbut did.