Scurvy believed to be more effective because they were more acidic. It was the acid, not the (then-unknown) Vitamin C that was believed to cure scurvy. In fact, the West Indian limes were significantly lower in Vitamin C than the previous lemons and further were not served fresh but rather as lime juice, which had been exposed to light and air, and piped through copper tubing, all of which significantly reduced the Vitamin C. Indeed, a 1918 animal experiment using representative samples of the Navy and Merchant Marine's lime juice showed that it had virtually no antiscorbutic power at all. The
Names of the days of the week nundinal cycle with the seven-day week. Our earliest evidence for this new system is a Pompeiian graffito referring to the 6th February ("viii idus Februarius") of the year AD 60 as "dies solis" ("Sunday"). Another early witness is a reference to a lost treatise by Plutarch, written in about AD 100, which addressed the question of "Why are the days named after the planets reckoned in a different order from the actual order?". The days were named after the planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order Sun, Moon, Mars ("Ares"), Mercury ("Hermes"), Jupiter ("Zeus"), Venus ("Aphrodite") and Saturn ("Cronos"). The