Chinese medicine has been used in treating pain for a long time. Much progress has been made in studies on the mechanism of the analgesic effect of Chinese medicine in animal experiments. It is found that the analgesic action may be related to the following actions: (1) Reducing the secretion of peripheral algogenic substances and inducing the secretion of pain-sensitive substances; (2) Alleviating the accumulation of local algogenic substances; (3) Increasing the release of endogenous analgesic substances; (4) Regulating c-fos gene and increasing the secretion of such substances in the central nervous system, etc. In this paper, the experimental methods and analgesic effect of Chinese medicines are reviewed.