shavings of parchment

Evidence

"when Gilbert the Englishman compares the faeces of a man with dysentery to the shavings of parchment, he refers to a material that could be used to record all kinds of useful information but was also the surface upon which painters and poets displayed their skills."

Remarks

Parchment is described as the primary surface for painters and poets to display their skills and for recording useful information (p. 190). The text draws a connection between medical and practical writing by highlighting Gilbert the Englishman's use of parchment shavings as a visual simile for biological matter in the fifteenth-century translation of the Compendium (p. 190).