The compositions and contents of chemical compounds in traditionalChinese medicines would be changed after being processed using different methods,and their pharmacological activity may be influenced. ICP-AES, AAS and AFS werethe first methods to be used to scan and analyze macro elements, trace elementsand heavy metals in Foeniculum vulgare and its nine different processed samplesin the present paper, which were correlated with people’s health and lives. Theexperiment results showed that the three kinds of analyzing methods could be usedto judge the contents and the changing trend of all elements in traditionalChinese medicine quickly and truly. Thirty two elements were found in F. vulgare,and there were noticeable changes in the contents of some elements in processedsamples compared with F. vulgare without processing. These results indicated thatthere is great relevance between changes in the contends of elements withdifferent processing methods, and auxiliary materials can not only change thecontents of elements but also play a role in treating ills with effectiveconstituents. Also, it was firstly found that the content of Hg rose greatly inthe experiment, and these showed there was notable potential safety hazard whenprocessed Foeniculum vulgare was used. These experiments widen the application ofspectrum analyzing methods in safety evaluation of traditional Chinese medicine.范大学化学生物学及中药分析教育部重点实验室开放基金项目(KLCBTCMR2008-03)资助