HEALING A BROKEN BONE

Have you ever considered the miracle of the automatic physical healing of our bodies? There are two general ideas about how this miracle came about in man. The idea taught in our public schools is that it just evolved over time. A more realistic idea, and one consistent with the Christian faith, is that healing is a component part of the overall design of the bodies of Adam and Eve as God engineered them in the beginning.

Let us focus on the relatively simple healing of a broken bone. Most people have experienced a broken bone or are close to someone who has had a broken bone. There are normally two consequences to any broken bone: 1. Lots of pain. 2. Loss of proper function. Imagine the consequences to a person’s life if the automatic healing of a bone was not programed into our DNA!

When a bone is broken (or fractured), not only is the structural function of the bone compromised, but blood vessels inside the bone and the periosteum (the membrane that covers the bone) are damaged. As blood leaks out of the blood vessels in the area of damage, they form a glob called a hematoma at the break.

 

Parts of a Long Bone

After this, the special osteoblast cells that have the function of building new bone, along with the fibroblasts and chondroblast cells that have the job of making collagen and collagen matrix, all work together to form a callus at the break. The callus supports and stabilizes the fracture as it heals. Each of these bone making cells is a picture of extreme complexity working in a complex manner to make healing happen.

The next phase of healing occurs when the callus, made of cartilage, begins to be converted to spongy bone. Over this six to eight week period the initial stages of healing are complete, and the bone is functional once more.

It will take 8 to 12 months more for the transformation of the callus from spongy bone to hard bone. This is the delicate job of the osteoblast cells. There must always be a proper balance between removing old bone and making new bone. We can see the necessity for design in every step of this healing process!

Humans today usually have the benefit of trained physicians to assist in the alignment and stabilization of broken bones so they will heal properly. Animals in the wild do not have this advantage, and so their broken bones may heal improperly, or even cause death. In the image below the difference between an Allosaurus dinosaur radius bone (top) that healed on its own and an unbroken Allosaurus radius can be seen. On the broken bone a thickened callus that is enlarged due to the inability of the animal to stabilize it for proper healing can be seen. This Allosaurus evidently survived the fracture, but undoubtedly must have endured lots of pain.

It is difficult for me to imagine how this complex healing process could have entered into humans and animals at any time other than at their creation. The bone healing process is another reason to praise the Creator and our Redeemer.

J.D. Mitchell

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