BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1978 VOL. 26, No. 9-10 
A NEGLECTED MAYAN GALACTAGOGUE 
IXBUT (EUPHORBIA LANCIFOLIA) 
FREDERIC ROSENGARTEN, JR.* 
A potentially important medicinal plant — indigenous to 
Guatemala, Belice and Honduras — is the perennial herb 
Euphorbia lancifolia Schlecht., commonly known as “out 
in Guatemala and El Salvador, and less well known as “‘hierba 
lechera’’ in southern Mexico. It is a member of the spurge 
family (Euphorbiaceae). 
According to Black’s Medical Dictionary: *‘Galactagogues 
are drugs which increase the flow of milk in nursing women. 
The normal stimulus of an infant’s lips is the most powerful 
agent in producing milk, and a mother who has little or no milk 
should nevertheless hold the infant to the breast. Good food 
and the hormone, prolactin, from the pituitary gland increase 
the quantity and improve the quality of milk.’ ’(1) 
Traditional Guatemalan folklore claims that ixbut (rhymes 
with ‘‘wish-boot’’), taken as an herbal tea, will stimulate lacta- 
tion and increase the flow of mother’s milk in postpartum 
women. A modern report in the Flora of Guatemala (2) states: 
‘It is said to double the quantity of milk given by cows that eat 
it. An infusion or decoction of it often is given to nursing 
women to increase their flow of milk, and it is claimed that it 
will cause the milk to flow after it has ceased normally, or even 
in women who have not given birth to a child.”’ 
In this connection, one still hears countless tales about the 
* Associate in Economic Botany. 
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