Breast implant
Since the late nineteenth century, breast implants have been used to surgically augment the size (volume), modify the shape (contour), and enhance the feel (tact) of a woman's breasts. In 1895, surgeon Vincenz Czerny effected the earliest breast implant emplacement when he used the patient's autologous adipose tissue, harvested from a benign lumbar lipoma, to repair the asymmetry of the breast from which he had removed a tumor. In 1889, surgeon Robert Gersuny experimented with paraffin injections, with disastrous results.
Breast augmentation
The advent of liposuction technology facilitated medical applications of the liposuction-harvested fat tissue as autologous filler for injection to correct bodily defects, and for breast augmentation. Melvin Bircoll introduced the practice of contouring the breast and for correcting bodily defects with autologous fat grafts harvested by liposuction; and he presented the fat-injection method used for emplacing the fat grafts. In 1987, the Venezuelan plastic surgeon Eduardo Krulig emplaced fat grafts with a syringe and blunt needle (lipo-injection), and later used a disposable fat trap to facilitate the collection and to ensure the sterility of the harvested adipocyte tissue.