WILLIAM HUNTER. 227 were, at different times, offered for sale in the metropolis. Friends and pupils were constantly augmenting his store with new specimens. On removing to Windmill-street, he began to extend his views to the embellishment of his col- lection, by a magnificent library of Greek and Latin Classics ; and formed also a very rare cabinet of ancient medals, which was, at the time, considered as only inferior to that belonging to the King of France*. The coins alone had been purchased at an expense of twenty thousand pounds. Mine- rals, shells, and other objects of natural history, were gradually added to this museum, which be- came an object of curiosity throughout Europe. It now enriches the University of Glasgow ; and the liberal owner bequeathed to that body 8000^. as a fund for the support and augmentation of the whole. William Hunter contributed several Essays to the Philosophical Transactions, and to the Medical Ohstrvations and Inquiries, published by the Me- dical Society of London. In one of these, he had the merit of first describing the varicose arieurism. In his work, entitled Medical Commentaries^ we find him warmly engaged in controversy, and prin- cipally in a dispute with the eminent Monro, of Edinburgh, respecting his claims to certain disco- veries — particularly the origin and use of the lym- phatic vessels. The eagerness of the contending parties in this discussion was very natural, when
- Nummomm veterum populorum et urbium qui in Museo
Gulielmi Hunter asservantur descriptio figuris illustrata. Opera et studio Caroli Combe. 4to. Lond. 1783. Q 2
