12 HINDE STREET, W.:
_August_ 18, 1876.




HYGEIA, A CITY OF HEALTH


We meet in this Assembly, a voluntary Parliament of men and women,
to study together and to exchange knowledge and thought on works
of every-day life and usefulness. Our object, to make the present
existence better and happier; to inquire, in this particular section
of our Congress:--What are the conditions which lead to the pain and
penalty of disease; what the means for the removal of those conditions
when they are discovered? What are the most ready and convincing
methods of making known to the uninformed the facts: that many of the
conditions are under our control; that neither mental serenity nor
mental development can exist with an unhealthy animal organisation;
that poverty is the shadow of disease, and wealth the shadow of
health?

These objects relate to ourselves, to our own reliefs from suffering,
to our own happiness, to our own riches. We have, I trust and believe,
yet another object, one that relates not to ourselves, but to those
who have yet to be; those to whom we may become known, but whom we can
never know, who are the ourselves, unseen to ourselves, continuing our
mission.