There have been gains but one has to see it in the context of health life expectancy which in the UK currently is about 63 years. Modern medicine helps to exte

There have been gains but one has to see it in the context of health life expectancy which in the UK currently is about 63 years. Modern medicine helps to extend life expectancy but often those last 10+ years are miserable clinging to life whereas in the past once you got, for example, a chronic heart disease you would not survive very long. The healthy life expectancy in the past can only be a guess but probably not that considerably lower for certain classes.