Medical practices have evolved a lot throughout history. While today we have cures for many different of diseases, such as smallpox and yellow fever, that was not always the case. As you can see in the graph below, life expectancy has risen 97.5% in just 160 years. This is partly due to the many medical advances we have made. The fastest rate of increase for life expectancy was in between the 1890s and 1950s, a time of immense advances in medical practices and technology.