Tantalizing Trivia: The First Breast Implants in World War II

By Eve

After many questions about breast implants from customers (at Eve's Apples Lingerie Boutique) and readers of the lingerie blog, I've decided to repost my article from October 27, 2008, providing information about the first breast implants. If you or someone you know is thinking about breast implants, read this article first. Also, keep in mind that you are gorgeous the way you are naturally.

Don't believe me? Take a look at the beautiful lingerie that will enhance you small and petite bust without surgery.

In the 1940s, during World War II, breast implants started in Japan's underground. Japanese prostitutes found that American GIs loved large breasted women and would pay more for an endowed woman. Since the majority of Japanese women are not naturally large breasted, many prostitutes had their doctors inject fluid into their breasts. The first fluids tried were saline and goat's milk. Unsuccessful, saline and milk quickly leaked into the body.

What were the other two fluids that were injected into women's breasts, leading the way for the modern day breast implant?

Were they...

• Paraffin Wax
  
• Vaseline
  
• Gelatin
  
• Silicone

Scroll below for the answer.

Information for our Tantalizing Trivia is from Sexy Origins & Intimate Things by Charles Panati.
Images on this page are from the film, Memoirs of a Geisha. Geisha and prostitutes were seen in a very different light in Japan.

ANSWER:
You are correct if you answered Paraffin Wax and Silicone.

Wax and silicone had mixed results. There were painful and lumpy results with the wax. However, most lasting effects were achieved with silicone. Panati says in his book that, "Determined to have 'American tits,' the girls allowed their doctors to inject Dow Corning's hottest new product, 'insert' liquid silicone, directly into their breasts. Silicone, however, had U.S. military applications, as an insulator, lubricant, and sealant, so the precious chemical was available only on the black market.

Silicone injections worked. The girls' breasts were immediately larger, still soft and pliant, and the fluid did not seem to leak away from the breast tissue into the body (like with saline and milk). By the mid-1940s industrial-grade silicone had become the hottest black-market item in Japan. Large drums of the chemical were mysteriously disappearing from U.S. military bases. The girls' profits were up, GIs were happy. Word got back to U.S. plastic surgeons that silicone was being used in Japan for cosmetic enhancement. Some American surgeons, most notably in Hollywood, began offering silicone injections to film stars and moneyed socialites."

Thus began the hot trend and controversy surrounding breast augmentation.

Terms of Endowment

One woman learns breast implants aren’t a one-time plastic surgery deal.

When aspiring Manhattan actress Kristen was 27, she spent $5,000 to turn her God-given B cups to full C’s. She chose saline implants with a silicone core, a product that—along with all silicone falsies—was pulled off the market in 1991.

She knew to massage her breasts regularly to try to prevent too much scar tissue from forming around the implant, the natural result of any foreign object being placed inside the body. She knew to remain on the lookout for sudden deflation, which would have signified a rupture. She didn’t realize that, like the rest of her body, her brand-new breasts would wear out over time.

Eighteen years later: “From the front, they still looked kind of good,” Kristen says. “But from the side, they looked like a lot of my friends’ who’d breast-fed. They didn’t have any boost to them. They looked completely real! I went in for a mammogram and the technician said, ‘I thought you said you have implants?’ When I got them done, I didn’t know they had a shelf life. I don’t recall anyone telling me that.”

When Kristen had her breasts done in 1990, a boob job was still a major event. Not anymore. Breasts, like bad teeth or unruly eyebrows, have become something to “fix.” A new set still costs only around $5,000, the same price paid by Kristen when Bush Sr. was in office, some doctors need less than an hour to insert the implants, some workaholics take just a five-day weekend away from the office to recuperate. Breast augmentation was the most popular cosmetic surgery for women in 2007 (closely followed by lipo), according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ASAPS). But many of this next generation of implantees, just like Kristen, assume their new breasts will stay perfect and perky even as the rest of their bodies inches toward the floor.

“Twenty-five years ago, women weren’t told that implants weren’t permanent,” says Foad Nahai, MD, a plastic surgeon in Atlanta and the current president of ASAPS. “But patients I see now are still surprised. The first thing I tell any new patients is, ‘Please understand, these won’t be your last pair."

Officially, implants themselves don’t have set expiration dates. “They last as long as they last. It could be six months, 10 years, or 20 years,” says David Rapaport, MD, a New York City plastic surgeon...

To read the entire article, please visit Elle.

Photo: Ritchie Maine