Second career – medicine In the 1860s, Douglas helped his father at the Beauport Asylum while studying towards a career in medicine. He worked as a librarian at the Literary and Historical Society of Quebec, and later became the youngest president in the history of the Society. There, he presented numerous lectures to the Society’s members, the first on Egyptian hieroglyphics and mummies, and later papers on mining and geological issues. Third career – mining This interest in mining and geology eventually supplanted his interest in medicine and Douglas embarked on a third career. In the 1860s, his father's financial fiasco investing in the Harvey Hill copper mine, Quebec, Canada, brought to Douglas the opportunity to save the family fortune by finding a way to make the mine profitable (it never was). In 1869, Douglas’ scientific experiments with the assistance of Dr. Thomas Sterry Hunt at Université Laval led him to a discovery that was to change his life. The Harvey Hill operation failed though their process worked. Together, they elaborated a patent for the "Hunt and Douglas" process of extracting copper from its ore. Although Douglas had no formal education in chemistry, he was considered competent enough to fill the Chair of Chemistry at his hometown's Morrin College affiliated with McGill University, from 1871 to 1874. His evening lectures were among the most popular in the history of the College. Mining-related inventions With Thomas Sterry Hunt, Douglas was involved with many experiments in the hydrometallurgy of coppers and devised what is known as the "Hunt-Douglas" process (first patented 1869) for extracting copper from its ores. Douglas was also the inventor of several other improvements in the mining industry, consisting of the invention for calcining ores (1884), a furnace for calcining ores (1898), a process for extracting copper from cupriferous nickel ore (1892), a process for separating and recovering copper (1896), and an improved smelting furnace in 1897. During the early 1870s, he traveled to copper mines in Chile and Ore Knob, North Carolina to introduce the Hunt & Douglas process. In 1874, he introduced an improvement on the Hunt-Douglas process at J. Oscar Stewart's quartz mill in Georgetown, Colorado to also recover silver. In 1890, he hired the young Dr. L. D. Ricketts, one of the brightest metallurgists of his generation, to introduce the Hunt Douglas process in Arizona. Then, in little over a decade, Douglas employed research chemists