Credited with the first successful silicone breast augmentation surgery in 1962, American Surgeons Frank Gerow and Thomas Cronin were not the first to consider the use of silicone in the augmentation of the female breast. The idea to use silicone in order to increase a woman’s breast size stems from a few years earlier, during the American occupation of Japan following World War II. Large amounts of industrial silicone were going missing from shipping docks in Yokahoma, and whilst having previously trialled paraffin wax and petroleum jelly, this silicone was now being injected into the breasts of Japanese prostitutes in order to appeal to the occupying American soldiers. Unsurprisingly this practice created a large amount of complications including gangrene and death. Despite these complications, the procedure made it’s way to America shortly after it’s Japanese inception with Dr Sakurai has been credited for the introduction. By the time it was prohibited in 1965, just after Gerow and Cronin’s surgery, it was believed that 75 Plastic Surgeons in Los Angeles alone were practicing some form of silicone injecting procedure for breast augmentation purposes.