Specific Pathogen Free (SPF) graded Wistar rats (140 ± 20 g) were provided by the Experimental Animal Research Center of Hubei Province (SYXK (e) 2017-0067). The animals were housed within a standard environment at a temperature of 25 ± 2 °C, humidity of 55 ± 5%, and a light/dark cycle of 12 h/12 h. The rats were provided with a standard diet and water. They were acclimatized to the new conditions for 5 days prior to the experiment. All 50 rats were randomly divided into 5 groups: control, model, EEDAR-L, EEDAR-H, and SLBZS. The appropriate quantity of SLBZS was added to water to prepare a suspension with a concentration of 246.8 mg/mL, representing the positive control. Except for the control group, all other groups were used as a treatment in the spleen-deficiency diarrhea model, with rhubarb-derived liquid administered to the stomach at a dose of 20 mL/kg, twice per day, morning and evening at an intervals of 8 h, for a total of 10 days. Each group was then administered the appropriate treatment at a dose of 10 mL/kg, daily for 7 days. The whole experiment’s duration was 17 days. During the experiment, the same volume of normal saline was administered to the control group. On the last day of the experiment, fecal samples were collected from the rats and stored at −80 °C. The experimental design was in strict accordance with the principles and guidelines recommended by the Chinese Association for Laboratory Animal Sciences (CALAS) and approved by the Animal Ethics Committee of Hubei University of Traditional Chinese Medicine (approval: NO.00273280, 10 November 2018).
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