The medical condition ‘cello-scrotum’ has been unveiled as a hoax by its perpetrators.

Back in 1974 Elaine Murphy and John M Murphy read a letter to medical journal the BMJ detailing the music-related chafing condition ‘guitar nipple’. Deciding that this was probably a spoof they submitted a letter noting a similar phenomenon in cellists.

“Anyone who has ever watched a cello being played would realise the physical impossibility of our claim,” they write in a new letter to the BMJ. “Somewhat to our astonishment, the letter was published.”

Not only was the 1974 letter published, it was later cited and – despite doubters – seemed about to become medical cannon canon before the Murphy’s new intervention.

Noel Bradshaw, a cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra, told the Times, “You would have to be doing something fairly extreme to get that by playing the cello. Otherwise, given the angle of the cello, you would have to have pretty enormous bollocks.”

Can you spot which of the following musical medical conditions is fictional?

Fiddler’s Fingers – skin inflammation from allergy to ‘exotic woods’ used in fiddle construction. True?

Violin Face – elongated faces from playing the violin. True?

Horn heart – arrhythmia caused by playing the French horn. True?

Punk piercing – unintentional stabbing associated with punk-music fashion. True?

Baton bulge – swelling in conductors’ thumbs from vigorous waving of their batons. True?

Answer below the fold.

Best headline – Medical hoax: ‘Cello scrotum’ was just a test tickle, AFP.

Elaine Murphy is now a Baroness and is on the oversight board of the National Health Service. John Murphy is chairman of St Peter’s Brewery.

And the invented condition is … baton bulge.