The invention relates to an apparatus and a method for rapidly measuring the sulfur dioxide residue level in a Chinese herb, and belongs to the technical field of drug analysis. The method comprises: a, drawing a standard curve and deriving a calculation formula; b, directly detecting the Chinese herb without treatment; and c, calculating the result. The apparatus comprises a purified water bottle, a sodium hydroxide solution bottle, an o-phthalaldehyde solution bottle, an ammonium acetate solution bottle, a sodium sulfite solution bottle, a multi-channel micro-flow-controlled peristaltic pump, a reaction pool, an ultrasound instrument, a micro-flow-controlled peristaltic pump, a serpentine condensation pipe, a filtration membrane, a cuvette, a detector, and a workstation. The method has characteristics of simple equipment, simple operation, accurate detection result, and effective detection of sulfur dioxide in the Chinese herb.