In recent years, for improving the ability of early detection on infectious disease outbreak, many researchers study the disease outbreak detection algorithms, based on many disease surveillance data, expecting to detect the abnormal increasing and cluster of disease and symptom at an early stage by adopting appropriate algorithm. This paper introduces a cumulative sum control chart method, one of statistical process control algorithms widely used in foreign countries and describes its basic principle and characteristic, key points of design, typical examples in application of disease outbreak detection of cumulative sum method, with expect to provide reference for its application in studies of disease outbreak early warning in China.