As a form of medical reference book, the catalogue aimed to simultaneously persuade and educate. Yet, the history of medical catalogue production would be incomplete without a corresponding history of catalogue distribution. Historians of the book have emphasized the importance of distribution in the ‘communication circuit’ and argue that the employment of suitable methods to distribute publications to intended audiences form an integral part of the production process itself. While we have seen that medical companies invested a great deal of time and money into producing catalogues distinct from other forms of advertising, this chapter focuses on the methods of distribution companies employed to target markets of medical professionals and, in turn, identifies practitioners who received catalogues.

Ernest C. Cripps reported in his 1927 history of Allen & Hanburys that the company's, methodical planning of catalogue distribution over the proceeding decades had allowed the publication to effectively serve its purpose. By the late nineteenth century, the company's, distribution methods, and indeed those of other medical companies too, were decidedly different from those that had come before. Early nineteenth-century catalogue distribution methods via booksellers, regional agents and instrument makers' shops were, by the 1880s, superseded by mail order, travelling salesmen and medical exhibitions.