This study was aimed to analyze the compatibility principles of herbs for the treatment of jaundice with the method of association rule,and to provide reference for tradition Chinese medicine (TCM) diagnosis and treatment of jaundice.A total of 3404 prescription data of inpatient medical records for the diagnosis of jaundice from 1960 to 1978 were recorded and processed.Then,herbs with high frequency were identified and analyzed the compatibility principles of herbs by Apriori algorithm.The results showed that from 3 404 prescriptions,there were 327 kinds of different herbs,with the average of 10 to 12 herbs in one prescription.From the herb frequency results,we found that the frequency of the top 50 herbs benefits of dieresis and dampness-removing medicine,heat-clearing medicine,deficiency-reinforcing medicine,qi-regulating medicine,blood stasis removing medicine,food stagnation removing medicine,dampnessremoving medicine,purgative medicine,phlegm-removing medicine,and etc.In addition,we identified 27 drug pairs (the associations of 2 herbs) and 24 angle drug pairs (the associations of 3 herbs).It was concluded that the application of association rules to analyze the law of jaundice medication which reflected the treatment experience of jaundice in this period.It can provide a new idea for the further research.It can also provide a way of thinking for our further study.