The Inuit discovery of Europe? The Orkney Finnmen, preternatural objects and the re-enchantment of early-modern science.

The late-seventeenth century saw a peak in accounts of supposed encounters with ‘Finnmen’ in Orkney. These accounts have shaped the folklore of the Northern Isles. Scholars linked to the Royal Society suggested the accounts represented encounters with Inuit. Subsequent explanations included autonomous travel by Inuit groups and abduction and abandonment. These accounts should be understood as part of a European scientific tradition of preternatural philosophy, occupied with the deviations and errors of nature. Far from indicating the presence of Inuit individuals in Orkney waters, they provide evidence of the narrative instability of early-modern science and its habit of ‘thinking with things’. Captivated by Inuit artefacts, the natural philosophers and virtuosi of the Royal Society imagined Orkney as a site of reverse contact with the ‘primitive’. Nineteenth-century antiquarians and folklorists reliant on these texts failed to understand the extent to which objectivity was not an epistemic virtue in early-modern science

Idiotype‐Anti‐Idiotype Interactions of VHIX‐Coded Anti‐Progesterone and Anti‐Arsonate Antibodies: Comparison of Passive Haemagglutination and Radioimmunoassays

The reactivity and specificity of potyctonal and monoclonal anti‐idiotypic antibodies raised against monoclonal anti‐progesterone and anti‐arsonate antibodies have been studied by solid phase radioimmunoassay (RIA) with immobilized idiotype and by passive haemagglutination with idiotype‐coupled red cells. The sensitivity of the two methods was comparable, though some cross‐reactions were only detected by RIA. Passive haemagglutination was found to be especially suitable in screening for monoclonal anti‐idiotypes in hybridoma supernatants and ascites. and had advantages over RIA in detection of syngeneic anti‐idiotypes. Demonstration of binding site‐associated idiotopes was possible by haemagglutination inhibition. RIA and haemagglutination were used to investigate the idiotypic relationships between BALB/c antiprogesterone and anti‐arsonate monoclonal antibodies which share heavy chains encoded by VHIX variable region genes. Copyright © 1987, Wiley Blackwell. All rights reservedSCOPUS: ar.jFLWNAinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe