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How did Thucydides experience the Athenian plague personally?

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Thucydides Thucydides manuscript, 3rd century bc (Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, P. Hamburg 163).

Thucydides was present in Athens when the great pestilence of 430–429 BCE occurred. During this outbreak, he personally contracted the disease and witnessed the suffering of others.1

His experience provided him with a unique perspective that informed his historical writing. He documented the symptoms of the plague with minute accuracy, noting that he did so "so that it may be recognized by medical men if it recurs". Beyond the clinical symptoms, he provided a moving account of the demoralizing despair that gripped the population as the disease spread through the city, which was then crowded with evacuees. This firsthand encounter allowed him to describe the profound impact of the epidemic on the human spirit and the social fabric of Athens during the Peloponnesian War.23