JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI—According to an Atlas Obscura report, a “porcelain gallbladder” has been identified among a woman’s 100-year-old bones exhumed from the cemetery at the site of the Mississippi State Lunatic Asylum, which operated from 1855 to 1935. A porcelain gallbladder forms through calcium build-up in the wall of the organ, which causes it to harden. Upon initial examination during the course of excavations, researchers did not know what the object, which was approximately the size of a quail egg, was. “Someone thought it was a calcified cyst, someone else thought it was a gallstone, and I thought, ‘that’s way too big to be a gallstone,’” said bioarchaeologist Jennifer Mack of the University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC). A retired surgeon who was a member of the team was able to identify the object. Mack added, “He came over, and as I was opening the bag, he said ‘I think that’s a calcified gallbladder.’ Because as a surgeon, he had seen them on multiple occasions before.” A micro-CT scan conducted at the UMMC showed that the woman’s gallbladder also contained a large gallstone. Gallstones were detected in another five people buried in the asylum cemetery, where as many as 7,000 people may have been buried. For more on archaeology in Mississippi, go to “Letter from the American Southeast: Spartans of the Lower Mississippi.”
