From 1941 to 1945, the United States imported a staggering thirty-four million pounds of bark from cinchona trees and around forty-four thousand pounds of cinchona alkaloids from South America. The cache of imported bark grew to more than forty million pounds by 1947. The quinine obtained from the Cinchona Missions allowed the Allies to win the war in the Pacific theater. Perhaps more cryptically but arguably as important, the missions also fundamentally shifted Latin American loyalties away from Europe and toward the United States. This realignment of interests has had major economic,
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