extreme makeover
...post-World War II Japan, when young women had industrial-strength transformer coolant injected into their breasts to meet the standards of American GIs.
The beginning is the 1960s, when topless showgirls in Las Vegas had liquid silicone pumped into them to make falsies for the naked eye.
The beginning is also the 1970s and '80s, after silicone was packaged in gel form and promoted as a cure, in the words of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, for small breasts that were "deformities" and "really a disease."
� Ellen Goodman/Boston Globe 11.02.03