The Bristol Scale is more fully known as the Bristol Stool Scale. But to mention this might have been a bit of a giveaway.
The scale is so named because it was devised at Bristol Royal Infirmary – around 1997. It is widely used as a research tool to evaluate the effectiveness of treatments for various diseases of the bowel, as well as a clinical communication aid – including being part of the diagnostic triad for irritable bowel syndrome.
Apparently it tells you that if your stools are small, round and hard, or just lumpy, you're constipated; if they're loose and runny, you've got diarrhoea; and in between is just right.
Well I could have told them that.
© Haydn Thompson 2020