Opioid selling Indian opium which was smuggled into China in defiance of Chinese government bans. This led to the First (1839–1842) and Second Opium Wars (1856–1860) between China and Britain. In the 19th century, two major scientific advances were made that had far-reaching effects. Around 1804, German pharmacist Friedrich Sertürner isolated morphine from opium. He described its crystallization, structure, and pharmacological properties in a well-received paper in 1817. Morphine was the first alkaloid to be isolated from any medicinal plant, the beginning of modern scientific drug discovery. The second advance, nearly fifty years later, was the refinement of the hypodermic needle
China Burma India Theater into French Indo-China, the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands instituted an oil embargo on Japan, cutting off 90% of its supplies. Japan cut off Allied supplies to China that had been coming through Burma. China could be supplied only by flying over the Himalaya mountains ("The Hump") from India, or capturing territory in Burma and building a new road—the Ledo Road. In 1941 and 1942, Japan was overextended. Its naval base could not defend its conquests, and its industrial base could not beef up the navy. To cut off China from Allied aid, it went into Burma, captured Rangoon on