Hairy vetch poisoning (vetch-associated disease) of cattle is a generalized disease characterized pathologically by infiltration of skin and many internal organs by monocytes, lymphocytes, plasma cells, and often eosinophils and multinucleated giant cells and clinically by dermatitis, pruritus, often diarrhea, wasting, and high mortality. The disease was experimentally reproduced in an adult Angus female that had recovered from the natural disease 1 year earlier. She developed dermatitis on the 11th day of vetch feeding, and despite withdrawal from the vetch diet on the 12th day, death occurred 24 days after first day of vetch feeding. The cow developed lymphocytosis and hyperproteinemia. The results of other hematologic evaluations, blood chemical profiles, urinalysis, and cutaneous hypersensitivity tests using vetch lectin were normal. Lymphocyte blastogenesis studies with vetch lectin were not interpretable. Necropsy revealed gross lesions characteristic of the disease in the skin, heart, kidney, adrenal, and lymphoid tissues. Microscopically there was typical cellular infiltration in those organs and in the thyroid, liver, pancreas, salivary and mammary glands, urinary bladder, corpus luteum, and cerebral meninges. Cutaneous apocrine gland necrosis was present. The inflammatory reaction has qualities of a type-IV hypersensitivity reaction. Hypersensitivity may occur when constituents of the ingested plant are absorbed and act as antigens that sensitize lymphocytes and evoke the multisystemic granulomatous inflammatory response that characterizes the disease. Alternatively, vetch lectin may directly activate T lymphocytes to initiate the cellular response. Vetch-like diseases have been associated with a variety of diets that did not contain hairy vetch.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)