Breast Augmentation: A Brief History

Despite what you may think, the desire for beautiful breasts and breast augmentation did not originate in Beverly Hills! In fact, the first augmentation mammaplasty (breast augmentation) wasn’t even in the United States. In 1895, Austrian-German surgeon Vincenz Czerny performed what is considered the first breast augmentation. Impossible, you say! Silicone implants weren’t developed until the 20th century. Indeed, it wasn’t until 1961 when the American plastic surgeons Thomas Cronin and Frank Gerow, and the Dow Corning Corporation, developed the first silicone breast prosthesis. The very first breast augmentation using silicone followed one year later. So how did Vincenz Czerny create larger breasts without these wonderful devices? Well, here’s a hint: he didn’t use anything not found in the human body. Vincenz Czerny actually used the patient’s own tumor growing in her back! The tissue of this tumor was a lipoma which is a benign (not cancerous) growth of fat.  (Note this is NOT the same as autologous fat grafting.)  This benign growth was transplanted from her back to the defect where he removed a breast from a more aggressive tumor. What followed later were various experiments and disastrous consequences from the hands of many different surgeons  using products like paraffin injections, ivory, ground rubber, glass balls, , ox cartilage, wool, gutta-percha, formaldehyde polymer sponges, polyethylene tape strips wound into a ball, and polyester.  How archaic, you say! Well, consider this.   As early as 2000 British surgeons were using breast implants filled with soybean oil!  Shortly thereafter, studies have shown a link between leaking soybean oil implants and cancer or and birth defects. At the time of the warning, approximately 5,000 women in Britain had already undergone breast augmentations with these implants. Now, we have cohesive silicone gel implants. And while they are not perfect, they appear to be very, very safe after countless studies investigated by the FDA. For more on silicone implants and their safety, refer to my LA2DAY article here.