Bolts, boosters, breast augmentation and inflation: no matter what you call breast implants, they are not entirely regarded as medical miracles, or even particularly dangerous operations. It is estimated that at least 300,000 women underwent breast augmentation in 2014, and today’s surgeons emphasize a “natural” appearance, which does not appear physically incompatible. You can insert them under the armpit to reduce scars, and you can choose a round or “teardrop” shape to fit your ribs and body. Today, unfortunate breast owners have the most surgical options they have ever had-but their new breasts have a very long and peculiar history.
Nowadays, breast implants are regarded as commonplace in surgery, and they usually only become news when they have something extraordinary-such as the witty woman who tried to smuggle cocaine in her body in 2011. But if the strangest story you’ve heard about breast implants involves dramatic bursts, or “inflation” events that you can adjust using hidden valves, sit still: the history of these babies is full of inventions, Drama and some very peculiar materials.
This is not for nausea-but if you want to understand that your breast augmentation options do not include paraffin injections or implants made from bovine cartilage, then this history of breast implants is for you.
Breast implants may be older than you think. The first implant operation was performed at the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 1895, but it was not really for cosmetic purposes. Doctor Vincent Czerny removes fat from a female patient’s buttocks and implants it in her breast. After removing an adenoma or a huge benign tumor, the breast needs to be reconstructed.
So basically the first “implant” is not for uniform enlargement at all, but for reconstruction of the breast after a devastating operation. In his description of successful surgery, Czerny said it was to “avoid asymmetry”-but the simple pursuit of making women feel more balanced after surgery created a revolution.
The first foreign body that is actually injected into the breast to make it larger is likely to be paraffin. It is available in warm and soft versions and is mainly composed of petroleum jelly. Its use to increase the size of body objects was discovered by the Austrian surgeon Robert Gesurny, who first used it on the testicles of soldiers to make them healthier. Inspired, he went on to use it for breast augmentation injections.
problem? Paraffin wax has a terrible effect on the body. Gesurny’s “recipe” (one part petroleum jelly, three parts olive oil) and its variants looked good in a few years, but then everything went catastrophically wrong. Paraffin can do anything, from forming a large, impenetrable lump to causing huge ulcers or leading to total blindness. Patients often need to be completely amputated to save their lives.
Interestingly, paraffin tumors have recently resurged in Turkey and India…in the penis. People have been unwisely injecting it at home as a method of penis enlargement, which shocked their doctors, which is understandable. Words from the wise: don’t do this.
According to Walter Peters and Victor Fornasier, in their breast augmentation history written for The Journal of Plastic Surgery in 2009, the period from World War I to World War II was filled with some very strange breast augmentation surgery experiments-so The materials used will make your skin wiggle.
They recalled that people used “ivory balls, glass balls, vegetable oil, mineral oil, lanolin, beeswax, shellac, silk fabric, epoxy resin, ground rubber, bovine cartilage, sponge, sac, rubber, goat milk, Teflon, soybean and peanut oil, and glass putty.” Yes. This is an era of innovation, but as expected, none of these methods have become popular, and the postoperative infection rate is high.
There is evidence that Japanese prostitutes after World War II tried to cater to the taste of American soldiers by injecting various substances including liquid silicon into their breasts. Silicon production at that time was not clean, and other additives designed to “contain” silicon in the breast were added in the process—such as cobra venom or olive oil—and the results were unsurprisingly terrible years later.
The serious concern with liquid silicon is that it will rupture and form granulomas, which can then basically migrate to any part of the body they choose. Liquid silicone is still used—very small amounts are used, and only completely sterile medical grade silicone is used—but it is seriously controversial and may cause quite serious complications. Therefore, sympathy for women who use a lot of liquid silicone Swimming around their bodies.
The late 1950s was the golden age of breast augmentation-well, kind of. Inspired by the sharp-chested aesthetics of the past decade, new ideas and inventions for implanting materials quickly emerged as things discovered during World War II became available for civilian use. One is Ivalon sponge made of polyethylene; the other is polyethylene tape wrapped into a ball and wrapped in fabric or more polyethylene. (Polyethylene did not begin commercial production until 1951.)
However, although they are significantly better than paraffin wax because they do not gradually kill you, they are not very good for the appearance of your breasts. After a year of pleasant buoyancy, they are as hard as rocks and shrink your chest-usually shrinking by up to 25%. It turned out that their sponge collapsed directly in the breast. Ouch.
The breast implants we now know-silicon as a sticky substance in a “bag”-first appeared in the 1960s and were developed by Dr. Thomas Cronin and his colleague Frank Gerow (reportedly, they are made in a plastic The bag of blood feels strangely like breasts).
Incredibly, breast implants were first tested on dogs. Yes, the first owner of silicon breasts was a dog named Esmerelda, who kindly tested them. If she does not start chewing the sutures after a few weeks, she will keep it longer. Obviously, poor Esmerelda was not affected by the operation (I doubt it).
The first person to have a silicon breast implant was Timmy Jean Lindsay, a Texan, who went to a charity hospital to remove some breast tattoos, but agreed to become the world’s first medical person. Lindsay, 83, still has implants today.
Saline implants—the use of saline solution instead of silica gel fillers—made their debut in 1964 when a French company produced them as hard silicone bags into which saline can be injected. The biggest difference with saline implants is that you have a choice: you can pre-fill them before implantation, or the surgeon can “fill” them after putting them in the bag, just like they pump air into the tire.
The time when saltwater prostheses really shine was in 1992, when the FDA issued a large-scale ban on all silicone-filled breast prostheses, worrying about their possible health risks, and eventually preventing the company from selling them completely. Saline implants make up for this shortcoming, 95% of all implants after suspension are saline.
After more than a decade in the cold, silicon was allowed to be reused in breast implants in 2006-but in a new form. After years of research and experimentation, the FDA finally allowed silicone-filled implants to enter the US market. They and normal saline are now the two options for modern breast augmentation surgery.
Today’s silicone is designed to resemble human fat: it is thick, sticky, and classified as “semi-solid.” It is actually the fifth generation of silicon implants-the first generation was developed by Cronin and Gerow, with various innovations along the way, including safer coatings, thicker gels and more natural shapes.
What’s next? We seem to be back in the “chest injection” era, because people are looking for ways to increase the cup size without surgery. It takes several hours to inject the filler Macrolane, but the results can only last 12 to 18 months. However, there is some controversy: radiologists don’t know how to treat Macrolane’s chest if chemotherapy is needed.
It seems that implants will continue to exist-but please continue to pay attention to what they will invent next to raise the breast to stratospheric size.
Post time: Oct-12-2021