Environmental air pollution causes serious damage to the human respiratory system and increases the risk of respiratory diseases. Smoke stimulation is a modeling method commonly used in clinical animal experiments to prepare animal models of respiratory diseases, including cigarette smoke stimulation and thick smoke stimulation, by imitating the pathological principle of air environmental pollution. Through drug treatment of animal models, researchers can develop drugs to treat respiratory diseases and alleviate symptoms. Research on the mechanism of traditional Chinese medicine and external treatment with traditional Chinese medicine for respiratory diseases is constantly progressing. Traditional Chinese medicine therapy has unique advantages in the treatment of respiratory diseases. Therefore, establishing an animal model with good reproducibility and high consistency with clinical respiratory diseases is particularly important to prevent, treat, and research respiratory diseases. This article mainly discusses harm caused by environmental air pollution to the human respiratory system, expounds the pathological mechanism of the smog stimulation method and the preparation elements and method of animal models, and analyzes the application of animal models established by the smog stimulation method in traditional Chinese medicine and external treatment with traditional Chinese medicine, laying the foundation to establish more reasonable animal models of respiratory diseases and the emergence of new therapies and drugs in traditional Chinese medicine.