Why did Horace Wells's public nitrous oxide demonstration in 1845 fail?

Horace Wells’s public demonstration of nitrous oxide as an anesthetic at Massachusetts General Hospital in January 1845 failed because the patient groaned during the procedure. This reaction led the onlookers to conclude that the patient was still experiencing pain, resulting in Wells being exposed to public ridicule.1

While Wells had previously used the gas successfully in his own dental practice, this high-profile failure undermined his credibility at the time. It was not until October 1846 that William Morton successfully demonstrated the use of ether as a general anesthetic at the same hospital, an event that helped establish the practice of surgical anesthesia in the medical community.12