Dictionary.net

The arrangement of a bed so as to adapt it to a particular disease. Also, a supplication, with the Romans, in times of public danger, when beds or couches were spread for the gods, as if they were about to feast, and their images were taken down from their pedestals and

[L.] (Hist.) An ancient Roman religious ceremony, in which the statues of the gods were, in times of disaster, placed on couches, the gods themselves, it was supposed, taking part in it.