'Cello Scrotum' Debunked

Yet more misbehaviour from high unelected officials. The cash-for-laws scandal which has been rocking the House of Lords during the past week was bad enough. Now it appears that the Chief Medical Officer for the country, Baroness Murphy, has confessed to having cooked up a fictitious ailment with her husband back in the 1970's and sending it off to the British Medical Journal as a letter to the editor to see if they'd publish it, which they promptly did.

The then just plain old Doctor Murphy and her husband John had just seen an article about a work-related ailment among musicians called Guitarists' Nipple which they suspected was a hoax.

Fiddler's neck, yes and flautist's chin - these are apparently well-known and verifiable work-related ailments. If Guitarist's Nipple passes muster why not Cello Scrotum or Triangle Player's Pinkie.

I gather that 34 years down the road, Baroness Murphy decided to fess up when Cello Scrotum began to be discussed elsewhere 'in the literature'. Her conscience got the best of her.

So far nobody has reported in with the illness - no cellist walking into a GP's office like John Wayne having just gotten off a particularly barrel-chested horse saying 'Doc, it hurts down there - can you write my conductor a sick note'

As for the British Medical Journal who might have caught the hoax before the imaginary ailment 'entered the literature' so to speak? According to the BBC they are fairly sanguine about the whole affair:

A BMJ spokesman said the inclusion and subsequent debunking of "cello scrotum" had "added to the gaiety of life".

No disciplinary inquiry at the British Medical Journal, then.

According to BMJ nobody yet has had to "...face the sack...."