ABSTRACT Professor RUAN Shiyi holds that although the location of coronary heart disease (CHD) is at heart, the key pathogenesis of CHD is intermingled phlegm, blood, and heat. Based on traditional Chinese medicine theory, he proposed the conception of "stasis in vessel", which regarded the intermingled phlegm and blood stagnate as the onset factor of CHD and deficiency of health qi as the internal factor of lesions, and divided the disease progress into 3 parts: phlegm accumulation, stasis and obstruction of vessel and collateral and heat-toxin amassment. With basic treatment of softening hardness and dispersing mass, Prof. RUAN treated CHD with methods such as dissipating phlegm and resolving masses, eliminating blood stasis and resolving mass and clearing heat and resolving static blood according to different stages of disease to dissipate the stasis in vessel and to keep the stable condition of atheromatous plaque.