THE GREER TRAGEDY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 9418, 15 June 1882, Page 3

THE GREER TRAGEDY.

Some extraordinary tales, every now and again, come to hand as to surgical practice in Melbourne. The latest is a story told by the San Francisco correspondent of the Auckland Star. He writes :—Do you remember tke Greer suicide and attempted murder which took place in Melbourne during the Exhibition time ? A jealous husband husband fired at his wife in the dress circle of the Theatre Royal, and then, putting the pistol to his own ear, suicided. "Well, apropos of this matter, I heard a most extraordinary yarn aboard the Zealandia, and, as it was told openly by a well-known Victorian medical man, and with full circumstantial detail, I see no reason for doubting it. When Greer fell, after firing the pistol, he was laid on a stretcher and taken straight to the Melbourne Hospital. A Collins street doctor happened to be there at the time, and without any ado he trepanned the unfortunate man and gouged a hole in the thickest part of the skull and rootled about for the bullet. He could not, however, find it. As a matter of fact, the bullet never entered the head Greer had fired in such a manner that, instead of penetrating the dangerous places it went no further than just inside the ear, and had the doctor shaken him, or even felt all over his head, it must have fallen out. The trepanning, however, did for him, and, as everybody knows, he died*. A piece of the man's skull, showing the trepanhole and the indent made from the bullet, is now in the hands of Dr fl ..., of Melbourne, who did his utmost to expose names, but without effect. The doctor was too influential.