In 1944 Woodward and William von Eggers Doering reported the synthesis of the alkaloid quinine, used to treat malaria. The synthesis was a breakthrough, as quinine was hard to get from Japanese occupied southeast Asia. In fact, Woodward's method could not be used on a practical scale, but it was a landmark for chemical synthesis. Organic synthesis was still largely a matter of trial and error, and nobody thought such complex structures could actually be constructed. Woodward showed that organic synthesis could be made into a science. Woodward's synthesis of quinine was the first of many of his very complicated and elegant syntheses.