Abstract: Objective To establish irritable bowel syndrome animal model of spleen deficiency type in WHBE rabbits for providing a certain tool for medicine development and basic research on irritable bowel syndrome of deficiency type. Methods 18 WHBE rabbits and 18 Japanese white rabbits were randomly divided into two groups respectively, with 6 rabbits in normal control groups and 12 rabbits in model groups. Using the methods of moist heat，stress and stimulation adding taking senna decoction in model groups of rabbits, the rabbits model of irritable bowel syndrome of spleen deficiency type was made, and 6 rabbits in each model group recovered naturally for 10 days after the successful establishment of model. To observe the change of clinical syndrome, weight, abdominal circumference indexes, water content of tools，thymus indexes，spleen indexes，visceral sensitivity and small intestine movement rate in rabbits. Results Compared with normal control group, weight of the model rabbits, thymus indexes and spleen indexes were significantly decreased (P＜0.05，P＜0.01) in model group, abdominal circumference indexes, water content of tools, visceral sensitivity and small intestine movement rate were significantly increased (P＜0.05，P＜0.01) in model group, and its recovered slowly. Conclusion The irritable bowel syndrome of spleen deficiency type rabbit model accords with the clinical characteristics of IBS, and so WHBE rabbits are ideal experiment animal more suitable for the study of irritable bowel syndrome of spleen deficiency type.

Key words: WHBE rabbit, Spleen deficiency, Irritable bowel syndrome, Animal model