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
An Authentic Account of an Embassy from the King of Great Britain to the Emperor of China commercial success of his illustrations of the Macartney Mission. With the increasing demand of tea in Britain the pressure on trade and economy grew, causing British accounts on China to be more critical and less appreciative. Fellow crewmembers of the Macartney Mission such as Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet published later reports on the Embassy describing the experience as overall negative. This can partly be explained as a reaction to the British frustration with the trading relation to China. The Serjeant-Major Samuel Holmes published his account on the Macartney Mission with the same publisher W. Bulmer & Co in 1798