A pointed nose, deep eye sockets, sunken temples, tight and dry skin, and a blue-purple face. These are the characteristics of the so-called “Hippocratic face” or “facies Hippocratica”. This is the face that describes the critically ill face, and the name comes from the first ancient Greek doctor who described this phenomenon and was hailed by the West as the “father of medicine”.
On Easter on April 20, 2025, the day before Pope Francis' death, he appeared in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican to bless thousands of believers and Catholics around the world. This was his last public appearance, and the characteristics of “Hippocratic face” appeared on his face.
As Hippocrates described in Prognosticus, these facial features are usually typical of patients close to death, and he also made it clear: “…if there is no improvement (for a certain time), it should be known that this sign is a sign of death.”
Under what circumstances will the “Hippocratic Face” appear?
These facial features are not only related to advanced cancer, but also related to diseases such as trauma, heart failure, respiratory failure, etc., as Professor Mark A. Marinella mentioned in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
Similarly, William Osler, a Canadian medical scientist and one of the four founding professors at Johns Hopkins Medical School, also wrote in his classic book, The Principles and. Practice of Medicine, the first medical textbook in the United States, that this face also appears in patients with typhoid and peritonitis, in which case, the Hippocrates face is also called “abdominal face” or “peritonitis face”. This is caused by relaxation of facial muscles and reduced blood flow to the peripheral parts of the body. To this day, it is still one of the characteristics that doctors can rely on when diagnosed.
