this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025
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No, I know, that's what I'm curious about, haha. I think the expedition is a red herring here.
For all my searching, I can only turn up sources that say limes are less effective than lemons, and lemons are less effective than oranges, and all citrus is less effective than fresh mammal meat, particularly liver. I can find sources that say the vitamin c breaks down when heated, so the navy's switch from fresh limes to canned lime juice made things worse around the age of the steam ship.
I cannot find sources that say limes don't work to prevent scurvy, and was wondering if you did.
that's why i linked the article! the bulk of it is about limes. they did animal testing in the 1920s (before the discovery of vitamin C) and found that
basically, as it was used by the british navy it was completely useless.
Right. The problem is not that they used limes, it's that they did a bunch of stuff to neuter the effectiveness of the limes.
well i mean the fact that they used limes were also part of the problem, since lemon juice could actually handle those conditions. so everything else being equal they would have seen increased rates of scurvy, but the steam age saved them.
Could it handle those conditions? I was under the impression that all vitamin C degrades with exposure to heat, light, and air. I'm not seeing anything that suggests lemon juice is immune.
as i read it it wasn't immune, it just took longer.
I'm sorry, I probably should have linked what I was looking at earlier!
This suggests that limes and lemons do not degrade at a markedly different rate. Arguably, this is under modern refrigeration, and not the conditions on a 1900s era sailing ship, but I haven't seen a source for that yet. I think your namesake is a bit cooler than you're giving it credit for, haha.