Dedicated to Marcel Scheidhauer

First it is shown that, contrary to editorial tradition, the article “Aphasia” published in 1888 in A. Villaret's Medical Dictionary (1988-91) was not written by Freud. It is then shown that the reasons for the ongoing belief in Freud's authorship go beyond the restrictive framework of erudition. Indeed, editorial choices and concerns, together with decisions about translation, are the main reasons for the inaccuracy. They concern, in particular, matters of epistemology, the conditions in which psychoanalysis emerged, and, in particular, aspects of Freudian metapsychology that remain controversial today.