Objective To evaluate the clinical effect of traditional Chinese medicine fumigation and herbal plaster for the patients with anal abscess. Methods A total of 140 patients with anal abscess were randomly divided into 2 groups, 70 in each group. The control group were treated with different operation methods according to the patient's health condition. the Potassium Permanganate solution (1:5 000) bath was used after surgery in the conventional anti anti-infection treatment; and the observation group were treated with herbal fumigation and plaster on the basis of the control group. The wound was treated in the both groups in the following 3 months after operation. The wound swelling disappearance, carrion shedding and healing time, pain relief, medical records of infection and recurrence were measured after the treatment and follow-up period. Results The total effective rate of the observation group was 100% (70/70), and the control group was 91.4% (64/70). The difference between the 2 groups was statistically significant (χ2=4.322,P=0.037). After 3, 7 days, the pain relief in the observation group was better than that in the control group (Z=9.742, 16.860,P=0.008, 0.001). After treatment, the observation group swelling (4.9 ± 0.7 dvs. 6.1 ± 0.7 d,t=10.142), carrion shedding time (3.8 ± 0.5 dvs. 4.2 ± 0.4 d,t=5.227), the wound healing time (22.1 ± 4.0 dvs. 26.9 ± 4.0 d,t=7.099) were lower than those in the control group (P<0.01). During follow-up, 4 cases (5.7%) with secondary infection and 2 cases (2.9%) with recurrence were in the observation group, but 20 cases (28.6%) and 6 cases (8.6%) in the control group.There were significantly difference of the secondary infection and recurrence between two groups (χ2= 6.092,8.934,P= 0.034, 0.001). 2 groups of secondary infection, the differences were statistically significant. Conclusions The combination of traditional Chinese medicine fumigation and herbal plaster could improve the wound healing time, reduce the secondary infection and recurrence rates of patients with anal abscess.