Which of Sources D or E is more useful to the historian enquiring into the problems experienced by surgeons when dealing with battlefield casualties during the First World War?

Source D is from a recent exhibition at the National Army Museum about the treatment of the wounded during the First World War. The strengths of this source in terms of a historian enquiring into the problems experienced by surgeons when dealing with battlefield casualties during the First World War are that it is recent and therefore has the benefit of hindsight and due to it being a secondary source the information presented is well researched, it is also specific in terms of the problems faced by the battlefield surgeons as it outlines that “the trenches were unhealthy, so battle injuries were always contaminated” and “jagged shell fragments forced pieces of uniform and bacteria deep into open wounds” as well as the causes of death not being the injuries themselves but “deadly infection.” The limitations of Source D in terms of usefulness to a historian could be that it is not extremely detailed about the difficulties of surgeons dealing with battlefield casualties during the First World War this is due to the fact it is a secondary source and is therefore a generalisation of many surgeons experiences rather than a detailed account. Source E is from an account by Henry Percy Pickerill, a pioneer of plastic surgery. He is recalling surgical techniques used in 1917 to rebuild the faces of the wounded. The strengths of this source in terms of usefulness to a historian studying the experiences of battlefield surgeons are that it is a primary source and is therefore very accurate in terms of Pickerill’s experience during the First World War another strength of this source is that he seems to be writing to inform about the techniques of skin grafting rather than relaying the experience of working as a surgeon during the War. The limitations of Source E is terms of usefulness are that is only contains one experience of a plastic surgeon accounting upon “the techniques of skin grafting” which was probably not the most important types of surgeons or procedures needed