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

1. lime juice is about 25% as effective as lemon juice at preventing scurvy, when fresh, and
2. its efficacy was reduced by being in contact with a) air and b) copper, which means the open-face copper tanks used to store the stuff at sea was... not well thought out.

basically, as it was used by the british navy it was completely useless.