Until this week cellists worldwide had reason to fear a terrible malady. Worse than fiddler’s neck, flautist’s chin or even the dreaded guitarist’s nipple was the condition known as “cello scrotum”.

Never mind that this dermatalogical ailment seemed unlikely, given the posture of the average male cellist, the condition was named in the British Medical Journal, and thereafter in an array of reviews of musician’s aches and pains.

Nearly all such reviews referred to a letter to the journal in 1974 from John Murphy, husband of Dr Elaine Murphy, who noted that he had once come across a case of cello scrotum. But Dr Elaine Murphy, now Baroness Murphy, has now admitted that the letter she drafted with her husband was a hoax, a practical joke that the couple have been “dining out on” ever since.

In a letter to the BMJ, prompted by yet another reference to the ailment in the journal last month, the couple wrote: “Perhaps after 34 years it’s time for us to confess that we invented cello scrotum.”

Their letter of 1974 was in response to a missive from a Dr Curtis regarding a skin irritation that he had seen among classical guitarists. After many hours with the instrument pressed against their chests, the musicians had developed guitarist’s nipple.

“We thought it highly likely to be a spoof and decided to go one further by submitting a letter pretending to have noted a similar phenomenon in cellists, signed by the non-doctor one of us,” the couple wrote. “Somewhat to our astonishment, the letter was published.”

In this way cello scrotum entered the learned discourse of doctors on conditions that trouble musicians. But in 1991 a dermatologist who happened to be a cellist sounded a sceptical note. Dr Philip Shapiro, of Meriden, Connecticut, wrote to the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology to question a review that it had published and that mentioned cello scrotum.

“I wrote a letter to the editor saying the condition didn’t make sense,” he told The Times yesterday. “Being a cellist myself I knew that the cello comes nowhere near one’s scrotum.”

He enclosed a photograph of himself, fully dressed, playing the cello, to prove the point. He accepted that there were cellists in the world who also suffered irritations of the scrotum. “Just as people sometimes scratch their heads repetitively, some also scratch their genitals,” he said. Some of those people might also play the cello.

He feared that if the link between the cello and inflamation of the scrotum were not challenged “it would enter the literature”.

Happily, this invented condition does not appear to have deterred generations of young men from taking up the cello. Noel Bradshaw, 52, a cellist with the London Symphony Orchestra, said that he had never felt inclined to worry about developing cello scrotum.

“You would have to be doing something fairly extreme to get that by playing the cello,” he said.

He suggested that any such performance would not be tolerated in polite society. “Otherwise, given the angle of the cello, you would have to have pretty enormous bollocks,” he said.

The mythical condition could even have helped with the recruitment of new cellists. “I think it’s always good if there is a bit of mystique about an instrument,” he said. “Danger can make things more exciting. This may have been a mixed blessing.”

Melodies and maladies

— Dermatitis: caused by hours of contact with an instrument. Irritants include nickel in trumpets, chromium and brass in guitar strings, flute heads and brass mouthpieces

— Fiddler’s neck: afflicts players of violins and violas — a sweat rash that may result in scaling, pustules and eventually scarring

— Cellist’s chest and cello knee: inflammation caused by the instrument pressing on the body

— Garrod’s pads: thickening of the skin on the index and middle fingers of the left hand, seen in players of stringed instruments

— Satchmo syndrome: rupture of the muscle surrounding the mouth, named after Louis “Satchelmouth” Armstrong. Excessive pressure on mouthpieces may also lead to the repositioning of front teeth among brass players

Sources: A Symphony of Maladies, Sarah Bache and Frank Edenborough; British Medical Journal

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