The condition of the hospitals, epidemics, airs, winds, fevers, local customs, venereal control, immunization, urban sanitation, sewage, pigs and laments about the shortage of means to promote the appropriate sanitary order are the most common topics referred in the 19th and early 20th health reports from Goa, India, written by Portuguese head physicians or surgeons. A tension between the need to express the boundaries of appropriateness and the overall goal of health promotion pervades the reports: while pretending to act, think and write as gatekeepers of a European code for the governance of life and health, the authors also report the occasions in which they follow local procedures in a pragmatic way to attain their goals. In this paper I will analyze some of the cases in which local knowledge and practices are subject to inquiry and reflection, and I will focus on one peculiar element of Goan material culture that led to some commentary in the health reports: the role of pigs in urban and rural sanitation.