Orvan Walter Hess (June 18, 1906 – September 6, 2002) was a physician noted for his early use of penicillin and the development of the fetal heart monitor.Hess was born in Baoba, Pennsylvania. At the age of two, after his mother's death, the family moved to Margaretville, New York where he grew up. Hess was inspired by Doctor Gordon Bostwick Maurer—who started Margaretville's first hospital in 1925— to study medicine. He married Dr.