A catheter sheath introducer comprises a hub and a tubular sheath having aninner liningwith one or more dampers to improve retention of medical devices received orpassed through thesheath without significantly increasing the force required to advance themedical device through thesheath. The dampers are made of a friction inducing material, for example,rubber-based materials,and configured as fingers, bumps or flaps that are unidirectional by means ofan asymmetricalshape relative to a longitudinal axis of the sheath.
