In 1870, barely a handful of British medical instrument makers and pharmaceutical chemists published catalogues to promote their goods to practitioners. Yet, by 1914, catalogues formed a significant part of their newly adopted systemized marketing strategies and allowed companies to compete in large and growing international medical markets. The largest producers of medical goods issued up to 30,000 new catalogue editions every two to three years and successfully distributed them to doctors located all over the world. To understand how the medical trade catalogue became an apparently accepted part of a British doctor's, professional life, we need first to assess how and why the catalogue came into being. This chapter therefore broadly traces the rise and development of the publication, from the first editions produced in the late eighteenth century to the last few produced before the disruption to medical markets brought on by the outbreak of the First World Warin 1914.

The emergence of the medical trade catalogue during this period was not rapid but the result of a slow process of growth. Its rise therefore cannot be attributed to just one factor or defining event.