Some centuries later, in the year 2139, technology and medicine have advanced; she and several other frozen bodies are thawed out and their diseases cured.

Few people appreciate that medicine has advanced more since World War II than in all of earlier history.

Since the creation of Medicare, science, and medicine have advanced, and life expectancy has increased as well.

In his piece, Gawande notes how the process of dying has changed as medicine has advanced:

You realise how far medicine has advanced since those early pioneer days.

"There are some areas in which medicine has really advanced and made general progress," he said.

"Human medicine and veterinary medicine have advanced beautifully in the last 30 years, but they were not linked," Dr. Karesh said.

Traditional Chinese medicine also advanced despite the Four Olds campaign, most significantly by the derivation of the anti-malarial drug artemisinin from the qinghao plant.

Banting and Best's discovery was a model of how medicine advanced through most of the 20th century.

Having seen how much medicine has advanced, he now advises couples to plan on at least one of them living until 95 or 100.