The fate of Timmie Jean Lindsay, the first woman to have breast augmentation

Today, breast augmentation is the most popular plastic surgery. Every year, a quarter of a million women get silicone implants to make their busts fuller and their figures more attractive. It all started in 1962, when Timmie Jean Lindsay, a mother of six, went under the knife at Jefferson Davis Hospital in Houston, Texas. Oddly enough, she came to the clinic for a completely different reason, but left with new breasts.

In the early 1960s, curvy blondes like Marilyn Monroe were at the peak of popularity in America. Ladies who were not blessed with curvy figures, in pursuit of fashion, put cotton wool or foam rubber in their bras. Timmie Jean Lindsay was not happy with her breasts either. It was not about the size or shape - she had nursed six children. The problem lay elsewhere.

Timmy once had two roses tattooed on her chest when she was young. Needless to say, they changed over time, losing their shape and color. The woman decided that these “youthful mistakes” did not make her look good, and went to a clinic to have them removed. The union policy of the plant where she worked covered the cost of the procedure, so she was not worried about financial issues.

You could say Timmy was lucky. She fell into the hands of plastic surgeons Frank Gerow and Timas Cronin. These guys had been developing methods for breast augmentation and reshaping for years. They already had equipment, implants, and a proven method, tested on dummies and animals. The only thing missing was patients.

Gerow and Cronin were far from the first to perform breast correction. Several years before their work, silicone injections had already been used in the United States. But this method raised serious concerns: many patients experienced complications, sometimes even leading to sepsis, which was life-threatening. Statistics also showed that even in the case of success, women had an increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Surgeons took a different approach. They came up with the idea of enclosing silicone in an elastic capsule. They performed many operations, sewing small implants into dogs and chimpanzees. All interventions occurred without complications - the animals' bodies did not reject the foreign body. All that remained was to perform an operation on a human. Surgeons offered Timmy Jean Lindsay not only to remove the tattoos, but also to slightly enlarge her breasts, improving their shape. Gerow and Cronin convinced the patient that the operation was not difficult and, since she was going to the operating table anyway, why not kill two birds with one stone? The doctors also promised that if Timmy did not like the result, they would easily return everything back.

The doctors did not hide from Lindsay that she would be the first, so to speak, "guinea pig". But they described her new, high and full breasts so vividly that the woman decided to take a risk. Gerow and Cronin removed the tattoos and performed a successful breast augmentation surgery. The result exceeded expectations: the doctors and their patient were very pleased.

Timmie Jean Lindsay kept her secret for a quarter of a century, not telling even her closest ones about the operation. Only in the 1980s did she admit to journalists that her breasts were the result of mammoplasty. According to her, over the years she has never regretted her decision to participate in the risky experiment. The silicone bust not only made her more confident, but also helped her get married again and make a career.

Lindsay assured that the operation completely changed her life. In a few years, she rose from an ordinary shop worker to a senior manager. Timmy sincerely believed that all the changes for the better were connected with her new breasts. It is hard to believe, because judging by the photo, she did not receive anything supernatural, especially when compared with modern surgeries. Most likely, the main factor was not the breasts themselves, but the confidence that they gave the woman. It was this confidence, and not the size of the bust, that became the key to success. Surgeons Cronin and Gerow were also pleased, because their many years of work were not in vain. But they did not even guess what effect their invention would cause. After the first successful operation, the demand for such interventions began to grow rapidly. At the peak of the popularity of silicone implants, in the early 2000s, 1.5 million operations were performed worldwide annually.

Today, mammoplasty is not just a surgical procedure, but an industry that changes the lives of millions of women. For some, it is a way to gain confidence, for others, it is a step towards meeting the ideals of beauty. But is it really true that new breasts can radically change your life, or is it all about the psychological effect? What do you think about this? Share your thoughts in the comments!