Drach came from an Alsatian family of peasants. Because of the
Franco-Prussian War the parents fled with their children to
Saint-Dié. He attended school there and in
Nancy before he studied at the
École Normale Supérieure (ENS). In 1892 he received his
agrégation and in 1898 he received his PhD under
Paul Tannery at ENS with thesis ''Essai sur la théorie générale de l'intégration et sur la classification des transcendantes
. In his thesis, Drach developed a Galois theory for differential equations, building upon the work of Émile Picard, Sophus Lie and Ernest Vessiot. After that he was Maître de Conférences'' at the University (Faculté des Sciences) in
Clermont-Ferrand. Drach was successively a professor at
Lille,
Poitiers, and
Toulouse, before he became in 1913 Professor for Analytic Mechanics and Higher Analysis at the
Sorbonne. During World War I he studied the mathematical theory of ballistics and published the results of his research around 1920. In retirement he moved to Cavalaire in southern France, where he had a country estate to which he frequently withdrew because of his health. He remained mathematically active in retirement. In addition to mathematical analysis and its applications to mechanics, Drach worked on number theory, partial differential equations, and differential geometry. In 1929 he was elected a member of the
Académie des Sciences. Drach and his friend
Émile Borel published, in 1892, their notes on lectures given by
Henri Poincaré and, in 1895, their notes on lectures given by
Paul Tannery. Drach was also a co-editor of the collected works of Poincaré. Drach was married to Mathilde Guitton. His son Pierre Drach was a noted biologist. ==Works==