2023 Obituaries: A Host of Consequential, and Very Long, Lives Lost
In February 1961, The New York Times, citing a study by the American Medical Association, ran a brief article reporting that Americans could very well enjoy a life expectancy of 120 years during the 21st century.The A.M.A., reflecting a now bygone era perhaps more optimistic than our own, was foreseeing a continuing tide of advances in medical science that would carry people along in good health for decade after decade.Suffice it to say that the 21st century still has a long way to go before anyone looking back from the 22nd will be able to confirm whether those medical authorities of yore were right. Who knows, after all, what life-preserving medical breakthroughs the next 76 years may have in store?But from where we sit now, the good doctors from 1961 seem to have been wildly off base. L...