At Lafayette he introduced the first carefully scientific study of English in any American college, and in 1870 published A Comparative Grammar of the AngloSaxon Language, in which its Forms are Illustrated by Those of the Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Saxon, Old Friesic, Old Norse and Old High German, and An Anglo-Saxon Reader; he was editor of the "Douglass Series of Christian Greek and Latin Classics," to which he contributed Latin Hymns (1874); he was chairman of the Commission of the State of Pennsylvania on Amended Orthography; and was consulting editor of the Standard Dictionary, and in 1879-1882 was director of the American readers for the Philological Society's (New Oxford) Dictionary.
Douglass, Ostrich Farming in South Africa (London, 1881); modern anatomical work on the group is referred to in the article BIRDS.
Dr. John Douglass found that alcohol and nicotine addiction lessened on a raw diet.