Because of concerns about treatment expense and duration, antibiotic resistance and antibiotic residue in milk, a Chinese herbal treatment for bovine mastitis was studied. Four conventional antibiotics, ammonia benzyl penicillin, a penicillin streptomycin combination, ciprofloxacin and ceftiofur were compared with a Chinese herbal extract called pyrolacin made from the herb pyrola (Lu Xian Cao), to treat subacute and chronic mastitis in 239 dairy cows from 7 different dairy farms. The rate of complete recovery of the mastitis was 75% for ammonia benzyl penicillin, 70.83% for the penicillin streptomycin combination, 81.25% for ciprofloxacin, 60% for ceftiofur and 58.97% for pyrolacin. There was clinical improvement without complete recovery in another 20.83% of cases for ammonia benzyl penicillin group, 22.91% for the penicillin streptomycin combination group, 10.93% for the ciprofloxacin group, 27.50 % for the ceftiofur and 28.2% for the pyrolacin group. The overall total of either completely recovered or clinically improved cows with mastitis was 95.83% for ammonia benzyl penicillin, 93.74% for the penicillin streptomycin combination, 92.18% for ciprofloxacin, 87.50% for ceftiofur and 87.17% for pyrolacin. Pyrolacin was well tolerated, had little skin irritation and had a strong enough effect that it may be useful alone or in combination with antibiotic therapy to treat subacute and chronic mastitis in cows to reduce expense, antibiotic resistance of bacteria and levels of antibiotic residue in the milk.