James Graham was one of the more notorious medical quacks that worked in London during the eighteenth century. He called himself a doctor, even though he had never completed his medical studies. He promised customers he could cure them of a variety of ills (but in particular sterility and impotence) if they slept in his "celestial bed," for which he charged £50 a night.

The Celestial Bed was twelve-feet long by nine-feet wide, could be tilted so that it lay at various angles, and had a mattress filled with "sweet new wheat or oat straw, mingled with balm, rose leaves, and lavender flowers."

As lovers lay in the bed, they could stare up into the large mirror suspended above them on the ceiling. Behind them, electricity crackled across the headboard of the bed, filling the air with a magnetic fluid "calculated to give the necessary degree of strength and exertion to the nerves." The phrase "Be fruitful. Multiply and Replenish the Earth" was inscribed on the headboard. Hidden musicians played soft music.

In other words, a night in the bed probably was an unusual romantic experience. However, it had no curative powers.

In 1784 Graham moved to Edinburgh, where he took up the cause of mud baths, claiming that they were the secret to immortality. He died in 1794.