Irwin Douglass was born in 1904 in Des Moines, Iowa and was educated in the public schools of Nebraska, Illinois and Iowa. He received a B.S. degree from Monmouth College, Illinois in 1926 and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Kansas in 1932. In his forty-six year career as a teacher of chemistry he has taught at Monmouth, Illinois High School (1926–1928), the Junior College of Kansas City, Missouri (1930–1931), North Dakota Agricultural College (1932–1933), Northern Montana College (1933–1940) and the University of Maine (1940–1972). He conducted post-doctoral research at Yale University during 1937–1938, served as a Ranger-Naturalist in Yellowstone National Park during the summers of 1936–1940 and was a visiting scholar at the University of California in Los Angeles 1962–1963. He became Professor of Chemistry, Emeritus at the University of Maine in 1972 and was a member of the State of Maine Board of Environmental Protection during 1974–1977. His research explored both the fundamental and applied chemistry of organosulfur chemistry and is presented here along with an autobiographical account of his journey. Because of Irwin's failing eyesight, his daughter Miriam has prepared this account of his research. She started her career in chemistry chlorinating disulfides in Irwin's laboratory. She obtained her B.A. in chemistry in 1960 from Oberlin College and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Northwestern University in 1965. Since then she has explored the applied chemistry of organosulfur compounds, inorganic and organic oxidants, nitrosamines and enzymes at the Colgate-Palmolive Research Laboratories. She was Adjunct Associate Professor of Chemistry at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, during 1970–1980.