Medical hoax: ‘Cello scrotum’ was just a test tickle

Their letter was in response to a doctor’s missive about a condition called “guitar nipple.”

It described a painful irritation among three young classical-guitar players,which happened when the edge of the guitar was pressed against the breast and eventually inflamed a nipple.

“We thought it highly likely to be a spoof,and decided to go one further by submitting a similar phenomenon in cellists,” Murphy and Murphy admit in the latest issue of the BMJ.

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

Baroness Murphy is a former professor at Guy’s and St Thomas’s hospital in London and is a member of an oversight board of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). She was made a life peer in 2004,and is active on mental health and ageing issues in the House of Lords.

The 1974 letter was intentionally signed only by John Murphy,her husband at the time,as he was not a doctor and so would not get into trouble with medical watchdogs.