Meaning of facies Hippocratica | Babel Free

Definitions

The pallid or shrunken face of someone about to die.

Examples

“Your child comes into the world with the symptoms of death; the facies Hippocratica forms the character of its physiognomy, and the prognostic of its fate.”

“Carew shifted his position, and once more looked anxiously at the haggard face⟳ on the pillow. It bore certain tokens which in his ignorance he fancied were characteristic of the facies hippocratica […].”

“Hippocratics prided themselves on their clinical acuity, being quick to pick⟳ up telltale symptoms, as with the facies hippocratica, the facial look⟳ of the dying: ‘a protrusive nose, hollow eyes, sunken temples, cold ears that are drawn in with the lobes turned outward, the forehead's skin rough and tense like⟳ parchment, and the whole face⟳ greenish or black or blue-grey or leaden’.”

CEFR level