If you chased down a multi-ton rhino on foot, then killed it with a wooden spear, just to grind up it's horn ... you'd get wood too.

All Ha-Ha aside, I agree with you some. While I'm currently an artist for a toy company, my education is in the Social Sciences, having received a Masters in both Psychology and Sociology. While sometimes people stumbled upon solid science (ie. aspirin) that works, I think many of the so called "folk cures" call upon the placebo effect more so than a solid scientific basis. If we take the erectile dysfunction as an example, we know that many cases of ED are psychologically based, and not physical. If the patient truly believes that the medicine man could cure him with rhino horn, dried deer penis, cobra venom, or what have you ... then that belief would allow him to "rise to the occasion." Although I will grant that, naturally, being a psychologist at heart I am still a firm believer that our greatest medical tool is "mind over matter."