Rare finding of a porcelain gallbladder in an early 20th-century asylum cemetery: Radiologic, clinical, and bioarchaeological perspectives

Abstract

Porcelain, or calcified, gallbladder is a finding rarely identified in archaeologically excavated remains. This study reports on an ovoid calcification found in the torso of adult skeleton from an early 20th-century mental asylum cemetery in Mississippi. The calcified object was imaged using conventional x-ray and computerized tomographic (CT) scanning (standard and micro), which produced images consistent with those of a clinically diagnosed porcelain gallbladder containing a single large gallstone. The aim of this paper is to raise awareness of this medical condition, which may not be familiar to most anthropologists, and of the efficacy of CT scanning for the identification of calcified gallbladders, which may increase the number of cases reported in archaeological literature and provide more information about the prevalence of this condition, and gallbladder disease in general, in past populations.