Francis Buckland's armchair made from the hospital bed of John Hunter

Now you know what the bastard offspring of a stool and a four-poster looks like.

This dreadful armchair is possibly one of the most preposterous and uncomfortable pieces of furniture I have ever had occasion to see. And yet so hideous a throne is not merely a monument to bad taste, but also a historical artefact from the world of the eccentric scientists of the nineteenth century. What you see before you is an armchair made out of a bed. Yes, yes, precisely so.

It was common knowledge that the distinguished English surgeon Francis Buckland revered the legacy of the great physician John Hunter, and one of his friends decided to present him for his birthday with the bed in which Hunter had lain in hospital. The hospital cot, doubtless wreathed in a magical glow in Buckland's eyes, could of course not be used for its proper purpose, and after a time the scientist was visited by a stroke of genius: to construct from the couch of his idol a commemorative throne. The inverted legs became armrests, the headboard a back, the bed a seat, and, for greater solemnity, a brass plaque was affixed attesting to its unprecedented provenance.